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Abenaki welcome equinox

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Monday, 21 September 2009

Abenaki welcome equinox By Matt Ryan • Free Press Staff Writer • September 21, 2009 Burton "Spotted Eagle" DeCarr stood in the center of a circle puffing on a pipe. The Abenaki elder, with a turtle shell hanging from his neck, feathers stuck in his cowboy hat and plastic beads sewn into his shoes, turned to face north, east, south and west across Lake Champlain, and prayed to a spirit in each direction. The 16 people in the circle, some wearing bags and sashes with long fringes, others in jeans and T-shirts, followed suit. DeCarr, 64, of Swanton prayed for peace on Earth, the protection of ancestors and the healing of Mother Earth. He also prayed for the autumnal equinox, due to arrive Tuesday. "The last few years I've had to do it on my own," DeCarr said of the equinox celebration. DeCarr said one of his great-grandmothers was Abenaki and another was Mohawk, but he chose to follow the Abenaki way. The equinox ceremony intended to bring "peacefulness and love" in with the changing of the season, he said. DeCarr and the group prayed Sunday afternoon at Hoehl Park in Burlington. Staff at the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center, next to the park, and Mayor Bob Kiss encouraged the Abenaki to bring their celebration to the public, Abenaki Charlie Delaney-Megeso said. "It's a time naturally of gathering," he said. Many Abenaki families met in autumn to share their harvests, he said. The ceremony would help people better know who the Abenaki are and what they do, Delaney-Megeso said. "The best way of cultivating our culture is to come out and do it," he said. One of the people in the circle, Laurie Mackey of Middlebury, met DeCarr two years ago. She said she was looking for a teacher of American Indian spirituality, and someone recommended she check out DeCarr. "They said he was a pipe carrier with the Abenaki, and I didn't know what the heck that meant," Mackey said. "I'm still figuring it out." Mackey wore a medicine bag around her neck during the ceremony. The bag held a prayer stone and tobacco. Don Stevens of Shelburne, who played a drum and sang with Delaney-Megeso and George Peskunck Larrabee at the end of the ceremony, thanked the people who showed up for taking part in the Abenaki tradition. "It may not look like there are a lot of people here, but there are a lot of Abenaki in Vermont," Stevens said. Contact Matt Ryan at 651-4849 or This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20090921/NEWS02/909210317/1001/NEWS

 

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