Wabun Wind and I met in 1983 when I started my apprenticeship with Sun Bear and the Bear Tribe. She was a strong influence within the Tribe and encouraged harmony with the ones that lived on Vision Mountain and those of us that came to visit and study there in the state of Washington.
We had a water-well up hill from the Long House that we carried water back down to the house. It was a challenging job. I remember our many trips carrying water together. Water is Life and we honored the Water each time we pulled it up from Mother Earth. Wabun was a steady force in Sun Bears' life. She helped him get his messages out through several books that were published through the Bear Tribe Publishing Company. After Sun Bears' illness and passing I worked closely with her to hold on to many aspects of the Bear Tribe. Through her determination and dedication we accomplished most of the tasks at hand. She was left with the Blessings and burdens of leadership of the Tribe. In 1995 she passed me a bundle asking me to go home and pray about her question. "Will you assume the Mantle of becoming The Medicine Chief of the Bear Tribe". 17 days later I gave her my answer. In June of 1996 at a Medicine Wheel Gatherings in New York state, she surrendered that position and passed it to me. Our friendship remains strong and I continue to thank her for her teachings of how to be a Clan Mother. The gifts she is sharing with us today is the start of the Blog Series of The 13 Clan Mother Teachings.
Look for this Blog for the next 13 months published at the beginning of each month. Thank you Wabun for this Blog "The Way of the Clan Mothers
Those of you who are Members of the Panther Lodge Bear Tribe will receive
a monthly Teaching from me on the 13 Clan Mothers
- Wind Daughter-Panther Wind Woman
Wind Daughter
The Way of the Clan Mothers by Wabun Wind
The world needs more Clan Mothers. They brought peace, strength, and balance to indigenous societies
by example. They taught the young women what it is to be a good woman and the young men how they should respect women. They knew how to nurture and unconditionally love. They could also be tough when their tribal children were straying off course.
I had the good fortune to have a number of Clan Mothers for teachers, and the privilege of being Clan Mother in the Bear Tribe and in many situations in my life since then. Your teacher Wind Daughter is certainly a fine example of what a Clan Mother is today. I know many of you have learned valuable lessons from studying with her.
Marlise Wabun Wind, Author
My first example of what it is to be a Clan Mother came from Joan who was a Caucasian woman who ran an informal Indian Center in Los Angeles with her Blackfoot nation husband from the 1950s until she passed on in the 1980s. Joan taught me about generosity, hospitality, and true compassion, which often has an element of “tough love”. She showed me how much strength of spirit it takes to be a true servant of the people. Joan never complained about having to put together her twelfth or thirtieth meal of the day. She genuinely enjoyed being able to feed her people, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. She would have given you the blouse off her back, and the skirt and slip to go with it – not out of any sense of guilt but because she liked to share what she had. Joan was a willing servant but was not in any way a martyr. She did what she liked in her life, and she liked what she did. Joan gave me a view of womanhood in which the traditional female role could be fulfilled out of choice, and with a dignity, grace, and sense of fulfillment I had not believed possible. Without Joan’s gentle example, my feminist prejudice against “traditional roles” would have kept me from being able to understand deeply the matriarchal foundations of Native culture. She began to show me what it means to care for your people for this generation, and all generations to come.
Clan Mother
Ruth, a clan mother from an eastern tribe, reinforced Joan’s lessons, particularly those about feminine strength. I would consider Ruth, a Medicine Woman, although I never heard her refer to herself in that way. She was gratified to have been chosen a clan mother, a position given only to women who have proven to have stability, compassion, fairness, deep love, and a fierce sense of protectiveness toward their people. Ruth had all these qualities, along with physical and spiritual beauty, grace, courage, and directness. You never had to guess where you stood with Ruth.
When she first met me, she accurately thought I was in pretty sorry shape. It was obvious to her that I was sincere about wanting to do well in my new life with Sun Bear and the Bear Tribe, but that I had little idea of what I was supposed to be doing. She was right. I was suffering from a severe case of culture shock, and I was also deadly serious about getting things right. After watching me flounder she said, “Little sister, you seem like you’re having problems. I’m going to help you.” Beginning then Ruth took me under her powerful wing. I felt as if I had a kind aunt watching out for me – sometimes. To say Ruth could be formidable is an understatement. She was a powerhouse, and widely respected. I was smart enough to know that being with her was a situation in which I should shut my mouth, open my heart, do a lot of dishes, and try to anticipate ways to be helpful.
Clan Mother
Over time she showed me the difference between being subservient and serving; between being passive and receptive. In the former cases you see yourself in an inferior position, in the latter, in an equal but different position. As my education went on, she made it clear my responsibility was to take care of as much of the earthly, physical level of business of Sun Bear’s tribal vision as possible. That would leave Sun Bear free to work with his medicine.
She did not see women as inferior beings in any way, nor did she see the task I had as demeaning. She believed life worked better when mothers took care of the family and Clan Mothers took care of the tribe. That, she assured me, was how things had worked on Turtle Island for many thousands of years before that “Columbus guy took a wrong turn.”
Sun Bear
If Sun Bear was going to build a new tribe, Ruth was determined his female Medicine Helper was going to know what a Clan Mother was, and how she should act. She could be sweet as syrup one minute and hard as nails the next – both attributes, she assured me, of all Clan Mothers. She was especially tough with those of the hippie bent who wanted to learn about Native culture but still thought anything was okay if they were “going with the flow.”
I remember one time when some young Mothers decided it would be fine to let their toddlers play without supervision, while the Mothers sunbathed (sans shirts) by a river. Ruth found one of the babies wandering close to the riverbank, retrieved her, and purposefully set out to find the mother. She let loose and gave that woman and her friends a necessary earful about their lax ideas of motherhood, and about the bad examples they were setting for their men, and for their children. I doubt any of them has ever forgotten what she said.
Turtle Clan Mother
Ruth did not need as assertiveness training course to know that Clan Mothers have the sacred responsibility to speak out for life, for children, for the elders, the sick, the helpless ones, and for the earth. She, along with my other teachers, has succeeded in instilling me with that responsibility. I pray that, through my writing and teaching, I can pass on these lessons to my younger Sisters and to the Brothers who need to support and respect them.
I was also privileged to study with Grandmother Evelyn Eaton and Seneca Clan Mother Twylah Nitsch. I will tell the story of my work with them another time. But I must pass on one Twylah story here. After she had known me and Shawnodese for a number of years she heard us debating the merits of continuing our relationship with each other as we had been for seven years or deciding to be married. She looked at him and said, “Whether or not she wants it, it is time you made an honest Woman out of her.” Shortly after we married. That was thirty-five years ago. Do I feel more honest married instead of just in relationship? I do. For us marriage deepened our commitment to each other and to the many types of work we have since done to help people and the Earth.
- Written by Marlise Wabun Wind
Wabun Wind on Wind Daughter's website https://www.winddaughter.com/wabun-wind
Wabun Wind's facebook page https://www.facebook.com/mwabunwind
Wabun Wind's Books https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/252794.Marlise_Wabun_Wind
Reading by Wabun Wind of Sun Bear's Vision https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSniYPfy8y4
Videos by Wabun Wind https://www.facebook.com/mwabunwind/videos/752638192169250/
(Each month The Teachings of the 13 Clan Mothers by Wind Daughter
will be sent to Members beginning January 2022)
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