Five women from Winnipeg Inner City Missions attended the Presbyterian Women’s Gathering. For me, Rev. Margaret Mullin/Thundering Eagle Woman, it was an honour to be asked to be one of the plenary speakers at the first, and I certainly hope not last, National Presbyterian Women’s Gathering. It was wonderful to bring three Canadian indigenous women and our parish social worker to the gathering with me. That was made possible by the generosity of the Women’s Missionary Society, the Conference Travel Fund, and the Synod of Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario.
After 15 years of looking in, and recovering my own lost Anishinabe cultural and spiritual heritage, a moment in time arrived for me to shout out what I have learned with the church. I am a mixed – blood woman (Ojibway, Irish, and Scottish); a woman of deep and abiding Christian faith that follows Jesus and the “Red Road.”
My mother, grandmother, and great – grandmother were Status Indians from Sandpoint First Nations, just north of Nipigon, Ont. My father, Irish grandfather and great – grandfather all came from Boom Road near Miramichi, N.B. My mum was scooped off the reserve at the age of three when her mother died because the Ontario Children’s Aid Society thought it was in ‘her best interest’ to be raised away from her indigenous family, customs, and spiritual practices. My people have hurt my people.
It has been a long journey for me; a journey of healing and reconciliation between our two families, between races, between the Canadian government and the First Nations people of this land, and between the church and Canada’s indigenous people. That journey began for me the day of my conception and did not come together completely until the day I was speaking at the Woman’s Gathering. I can now say with conviction that I am who I am, placed by the Creator to be where I am, and that I am comfortable in my own skin. The only sad note for me is that the journey to that moment in time where I was speaking confidently and passionately, took me 58 years. In my life it has not been okay to be who I am, until this past decade. Even still, some people in the church and in the First Nations community would have me believe that I cannot be a traditional woman who follows Jesus.
The seminal moment for me came as I was leading the parade of Nations into that gathering room on Sunday morning, drumming on my mother’s traditional hand drum, and dressed in my indigenous regalia. That is a moment I will never forget. There we were, over 20 red and yellow, black and white skinned women from all nations of the world, joyfully singing God’s praises and using our various hand instruments and styles of dance all in the context of Christian worship. It was an amazing weekend.
