LELAND -- There's more to motherhood than a genetic strand. Sometimes it's a "symbolic" mother or grandmother whose maternal instincts provide the nurturing care that can alter lives, whether it's within the nucleus of a traditional family or one as large as a Native American nation.
Keewaydinoquay Peschel, of Leland, was an elder of the Crane Clan of the Anishinaabe Nation. She was grandmother to hundreds of people, some of them older than she, but Keewaydinoquay was more than that. The "Woman of the Northwest Wind," as her name translates, was a scholar with two master's degrees and completed doctoral studies. She was an ethnobotanist intrigued by the relationship between plants and people, a medicine woman, teacher and author.
"Keewaydinoquay was not my biological grandmother, but she was spiritually," said Lee Boisvert, of Rapid City. "In Native American worlds if there is someone you admire and respect you might call them grandmother, grandfather, aunt or uncle."
Keewaydinoquay was a guiding presence in Boisvert's life. Boisvert, who studied with Keewaydinoquay for the 12 years leading up to her death in 1999, is the former coordinator of Indian education programming for East Jordan Schools. She is the editor of Kee's book, "Keewaydinoquay, Stories from My Youth," which was unfinished at the time of her death.
Boisvert currently is a member of a group researching and organizing Kee's papers and stories, as well as converting her home in Leland into Holy Hill, a center for community and spiritual growth.
Keewaydinoquay was an interesting combination. With one grandfather an Anishinaabe Ogema (leader) and the other grandfather an Episcopal minister, Kee grew up in the mid-1900s learning both Western and tribal lifestyles and spiritualities. "She played the organ at St. Christopher's Episcopal Church in Northport, and was very close to the people there," Boisvert recalled. "She was able to transcend both religions."
She was an expert herbalist who apprenticed to a medicine woman and also studied Western medicine. Boisvert said Kee's willingness to share her knowledge of tribal customs and remedies originally brought her under fire from leaders leery of divulging Indian ways, but she was a member of both worlds and realized she was supposed to work with all people, Boisvert said. Many Native leaders have now come to see the rightness of her work.
Keewaydinoquay grew up in a deeply spiritual family with both sets of grandparents. "My perception is that she sometimes couldn't figure out where she best fit in, but at 9 years of age she went on a vision quest," Boisvert said. The custom is a rite of passage into adulthood that includes spending several days in solitude and meditation in the woods.
"It was illegal back then," Boisvert said. "In fact, it was illegal until 1978 when the American Indian Religious Freedom Act was passed. It was illegal for any Native American to have any spiritual ceremony."
The federal government had an intentional program of destroying the clan system because it was not able to break the spirit of Native American people by only taking the land, so it passed legislation intended to destroy the cultures, Boisvert said. It's why young Native American children were sent to schools and not allowed to have contact with their families, speak their own language or practice their traditions.
"It worked very well," she said. "I wasn't brought up knowing about my Oneida heritage. It wasn't safe to know. Many families were thrilled if they could pass (for white) because you were denied employment, equal education, decent housing."
The first time Boisvert sat with Kee was over a meal at what is now Holy Hill.
"Grandmother said, 'We are family.' I would hear many variations of that over council fires and in many different circles, and I finally came to realize that we weren't just saying, 'I'm a sister, I'm a granddaughter to everyone in the circle.' What we're really saying is that we are all part of all life. Grandmother called that 'interconnectedness,'" Boisvert said. "All humans once lived in earth-based cultures. I think there's a genetic memory, that we all lived close to Mother Earth and knew the power of that closeness."
Boisvert, who lectures on Keewaydinoquay's life at libraries across Michigan, tells the rest of Kee's story, one of many versions of a series of prophecies called the Seven Sacred Fires.
The Fourth Fire predicted that the coming of the white men would be bad for the Anishinaabeg people if the people coming did not wear their true faces. The prophecy came to pass in the 1600s, and it's known that between 50 and 100 percent of different nations' people perished either by warfare, massacres or diseases such as small pox or measles.
The Fifth Fire prophesied that the people would turn away from the teaching of their elders. They did because many of them were put in boarding schools or became isolated from their clans and elders.
The Sixth Fire said children of white men would sit at the feet of the red man to learn. That came about in the 1960s and 1970s, and even now, there is an awakening of consciousness, Boisvert said.
The Seventh Fire is the understanding that humans are just one cog in the mass of beings that it takes for the universe to work. In the Seventh Fire, all people of all races need to come together to learn to walk in peace with each other and in honor and balance with all life.
"Grandmother's job was gathering wood for the Seventh Fire, and that is all of us who she taught, inspired and brought together," Boisvert said. "To me, it's not a metaphor. It's a sacred fire that burns in our hearts. I don't know if she even knew that was what she was doing."
"So, our job is helping gather wood for the Eighth Fire, to help people understand that humanity has to respect and work together. It doesn't matter what you call it. It doesn't matter what religion it's through," Boisvert said. "When people used to talk about the prophecies of the Seven Fires, they used to say that white people had to learn respect and to get along or we will all perish, but many elders have come to realize the teachings of the Fires are for all people. Kee knew that anyone can be prayerful and giving and walk in honor."
Lee Boisvert will offer a presentation from 6 to 8 p.m. May 15 at the Suttons Bay Area Public Library, 416 Front St.
Gretchen Murray can be reached at gmurray@record-eagle.com.
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