Continued without preamble from Mrs A. T – Part Two.

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LOUISE: With her first child, two people helped her. Her mother-in-law and a midwife, some older person who was a midwife and medicine lady.

MARYANNE: Can you tell me the name of that lady in Cree? What’s the Cree name for midwife or medicine woman?

A discussion follows of how we may not be able to write the word in our language anyway.

MARYANNE: That’s okay, keep going, I’m sorry to interrupt, so there was a mother-in-law and a traditional midwife there.

LOUISE: She was also a medicine woman. What they did for her was, they had a stick, in a slant like this… so what they did for her was they had a bed and they had this stick in a slant like this on a chair here and what she had to do was hang over the stick to give birth. Well, she couldn’t do that, some people could, others couldn’t. Her mother used to use that stick. The purpose of that stick was the baby kind of came out there.

MARYANNE: So they’d be kind of in an upright position?

LOUISE: The stick would be here and they hung on it.

MARYANNE: So you were on your knees?

MRS T.: Ah-ha (Yes)

MARYANNE: Leaning over?

MRS T.: Ah-ha.

LOUISE: But she couldn’t do it so she was able to lay down and hang onto that stick.

KAREN: Why couldn’t she hang on to the stick? Did she not want to?

LOUISE: She couldn’t. She couldn’t. Some people can, others can’t. Like her mum could.

MARYANNE: What did they put underneath the woman?

LOUISE: Okay they had straw–

MRS T.: Hay!

LOUISE: About four to eight inches of hay and then they had a real soft blanket and they put a blanket over there and when the baby was born that’s where the baby fell.

MARYANNE: So nobody caught the baby in hands?

LOUISE: Okay, when the baby fell, then they caught the baby. And that’s where they cut the cord.

MARYANNE: So who would cut the cord?

MRS T.: The midwife.

KAREN: Was your husband there?

MRS T.: No! They never! (Much laughter at the very idea.)

LOUISE: No, her husband was not there.

MARYANNE: And was never there?

LOUISE: No, not for any of her childbirths.

MARYANNE: Is that part of the culture that the husband is not there?

LOUISE: The men were never in the childbirth, it was only the two women who were in there. But the man was outside. Around. The husband, sometimes would prepare a meal while his child was being born.

MARYANNE: Isn’t that nice! (Much laughter)

LOUISE: I wish that would have happened!

MARYANNE: Tell us what kind of supplies were used. Was water boiled, what was used to cut the cord, tie off the cord, things like that?

LOUISE: They didn’t really boil any water, they used warm water to wash the baby off and they used strong thread to tie the cord before they cut it and the only thing she knows was the medicine that was (several words unclear) and those kind of things that they used.

MARYANNE: What about the afterbirth? How was that delivered? And then what did they do with it afterward, any special customs or beliefs?

LOUISE: Okay, after the afterbirth falls out then they collect everything, wrap it all up and take it out to the bush and she thinks they burnt it.

MARYANNE: So there were no problems in her births at home?

LOUISE: Not at home. No she never had any problems at home. The child would be born and the afterbirth would come right away, even the bleeding, you know after you have a baby, even that was not that much.

MARYANNE: Did you nurse your babies, how soon after they were born?

LOUISE: She would feed the baby as soon as the baby was hungry. Usually the baby would let you know.

MARYANNE: And soon after birth, did she feed right away?

LOUISE: No. When the baby was hungry. Probably three four hours, maybe more.

KAREN: Was this first baby a boy or a girl?

LOUISE: A boy. And then a girl.

KAREN: Was it a big baby, this first one?

LOUISE: Well, they couldn’t weigh it but it wasn’t big. (Much, much laughing between Louise and Mrs T.)

MARYANNE: Tell us!

LOUISE: For the second child they were preparing to take her to the hospital and her mother-in-law is getting ready and she said, “I could feel this pushing pain and I went and laid down and the kid was born!”

MARYANNE: Forget about the hospital!

KAREN: That was the second baby? That’s interesting. You wanted to have your babies at home?

MRS T.: Yeah.

KAREN: Was there any pressure, ever, to move into the hospital? Did she have to resist pressure to go the hospital?

LOUISE: Her mother-in-law was just starting out in midwifery and she didn’t really want to look after her a second time! She was going to take her to the hospital, but she fooled her! To Mrs T. And she had to look after you, ah?

MRS T.: Ah ha.

LOUISE: No, there was no pressure to go to the hospital.

MARYANNE: So when she did go, was that her own decision?

LOUISE: She was separated by that time, so she wasn’t with the same family. She had her family with her husband but then they were separated and her mother-in-law was no longer with her. She had moved.

KAREN: Which hospital did she have the babies in?

LOUISE: The first one was in Meadow Lake and P.A.

KAREN: So she had three in the hospital?

LOUISE and MRS T.: Yeah.

KAREN: Okay, thirteen at home then.

AMY: Yeah.

MARYANNE: And when you had that baby in the hospital, did they give you some sort of drug to put you to sleep?

LOUISE: She did receive medication by intravenous.

KAREN: Did they ask her permission or did they just put it in?

LOUISE: No, they just did it.

MARYANNE: I think that was pretty standard for all women at that time. Nobody was asked, it was just given. How about with a newborn baby, were there any special customs or beliefs with a newborn baby?

LOUISE: There was nothing too much special, they didn’t do much that was special, except for the naming of the child. That was done by an elder. The elder would name the child and that’s the main thing.

MARYANNE: Do you know when the naming happened? Right after the birth?

LOUISE: About a week.

Daughter Lorraine has joined the conversation by this time. Lorraine, who was 17 at the time, is Mrs T’s second youngest child. She came home, entering the house through the kitchen door, and began making herself some lunch. She got curious when she heard us in the living room, and popped her head in to ask what was going on. It was Louise who explained to Lorraine what we were doing–Mrs T’s English wasn’t good enough, and Lorraine’s Cree wasn’t good enough. Mother and daughter couldn’t communicate fluently in the same language and Lorraine had never heard the birth stories, or any details of her mother’s early life, before. She placed a little wooden step stool against the wall next to me, and sat down to listen. She was clearly, and most gratifyingly, fascinated by what she heard. Later, she shared her interest with her siblings.

KAREN: Did she get to choose the name?

LOUISE: No. The elder. The elder chose the name. The elder was (unclear, but it sounds as though it had something to do with tobacco, for a name, an Indian name, and then when the kids are baptized, she would give them a name. The Indian name was usually an animal or something with the environment.

Lorraine tells us her Cree name is “Echo wind.” They give you several, she says. To Louise, she says. “Tell them about that.”

LOUISE: That’s another belief that you can write about is the elder giving you a name to make you strong like you said (Earlier, Maryanne had said, “That sounds strong.”) She was a sickly child, when she was young and finally they took her to an elder who gave her a name for strength and after that she never got sick. I’d imagine what the elder what he does, is he gives the name and then he prays.

KAREN: Was the elder a he or a she?

LOUISE: Years ago it used to be a man, the elder was always a man. But today it could also be a woman. They had women elders. Things have changed. Years ago it was only the men who did the Sundance and giveaways and Sundance was done only by men. Today it’s done by women. The same thing with elders. The woman was an elder but she had a different role and the man as an elder had a role but today the roles are different. They are used together but that’s not the way it was before. The women have sweats today also and it never used to be the women it was the men who had the sweats. The women had a different role. But now the roles are starting to integrate.

As often happened when there were a few people present for an interview, the conversation began to digress quite far from the main topic. Because of the time it was already taking to transcribe the interviews, we often left these parts out of the written version. This made for some abrupt transitions when we came back on topic.

MARYANNE: Okay, so did he come in shortly after the baby was born, or later?

LOUISE: Right away.

KAREN: You didn’t ask how old he was when you were married?

MRS T.: Oh, eighteen.

KAREN: Oh, just young too.

MARYANNE: So did you have any visitors that came to see you after you had the baby?

LOUISE: Not answering this question. Yeah, she just followed some of the instructions that were given to her by her mum, and by her mother-in-law not to lift things that were too heavy and she more or less taught herself how to look after the baby because she had watched. That was the way she learned, by watching and that was the traditional way of teaching, the kids had to watch.

KAREN: How soon after she had the baby did they move back into the bush?

LOUISE: About two weeks.

MARYANNE: Okay, and how about any gifts, did she get any gifts for the baby? Or for herself?

LOUISE: She did get some from her parents, gifts for the baby. The rest of the things she made herself, or she’d buy some.

MARYANNE: So thinking back over all her birth experiences, are there any that leave her with a good feeling inside, or a funny feeling? Any stories that were particularly funny?

LOUISE: Her husband took her to the hospital to have her sixth baby. She was having pains and her mother was not home and her mother-in-law was also gone, but then somebody told her that the train had just come in and her mum was home. Her mum had just come in on the train. She was in the hospital she was going to have this baby, so she hired this white person that she knew to take her to her mum’s. She left the hospital and went home and had her baby. She wasn’t fooling around. “I’m gonna have my baby over there, that’s all there is to it!”

MARYANNE: Good for you!

LOUISE: (Referring to herself) My doctor always looks at me, he must really think I’m something, you know, because when I go in I always say, “You’re not doing whatever it is you want to do with my body! This is my body!”

KAREN: And you work at the community clinic!

LOUISE: Yeah! (Much laughing throughout this exchange)

MARYANNE: So any births that leave her with a bad feeling? Any where she was poorly treated? You know, she may have already told us that, the births in the hospital, so I don’t know if we need to go over that again.

LOUISE: Yeah.

MARYANNE: Yeah. So was any birth experience in any way a spiritual one for her? Or was birth a spiritual experience?

LOUISE: Boy, I don’t know how to say this! You know, this is a big question. (She’s having difficulty, translating the words and the concept.)

KAREN: Well, let’s ask the second part of that question, do you think you’ve gained any special wisdom or special insights? Did you feel any sort of, change or transformation?

LORRAINE: When you were having a baby? Did they have, like, grandfathers? Did you hear grandfathers? Something like that. (I don’t know what she means.)

LOUISE: Ask her in Cree.

LORRAINE: I don’t know how.

LOUISE: (After giving it a try herself.) No, she never experienced anything spiritual, nothing.

In hindsight, I think all of our interview subjects misunderstood this question. We were thinking about the weight of the new responsibility, a certain connection to the past and future that is missing before you have children, that kind of thing. Most took it rather more literally, as I think Mrs T is doing here.

KAREN: (trying to rephrase) Do you think it changed your life, in more ways than simply changing from a young woman to a mother?

LOUISE: I have to really think…Eh God, I don’t know! (Laughter all around. I think my mind is getting…

MARYANNE: We would like to ask her permission to use her name, may we use her name or would she like us to make up a name?

LOUISE: She’s okay with her name.

KAREN: Is it all right to use Lorraine’s name if it should become necessary?

LORRAINE: Sure! Yes.

In fact, all but about five of the participants gave us permission to use their real names in the book. I’ve decided only recently to use initials on this website, for reasons I’ll explain elsewhere. I’ve retained Lorraine’s name in this story because she and her siblings are already fully aware of the project, and are now in possession of the original recording.

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