Pictured right: Roberts parents, Susan and Johnny Abraham after a moose hunt

We are very pleased to have a guest blog post this month from Robert Abraham! Robert is passionate about sharing cultural knowledge. He shared this story below about his mother’s intuition, and the connection between Carrier people and their relation to the environment.

“My name is Robert Abraham, I come from the Takla Lake First Nations band. My parents are Johnny and Susan Abraham. 

One time back in the early 1980’s before our community had telephones or electricity [powerlines came through in 1985] our grandmother Aneh, Sarah Teegee, was getting older and had to move into our house so mom could watch and take better care of her. One early afternoon we were all inside the house and mom was doing her usual sewing at the table and everything was quiet. All of a sudden mom said out loud, “Oh there’s people coming! Get the pots and pans out!” as she jumped up and started cooking quickly. We didn’t know what she meant by her reaction and went back to whatever we were doing. Mom finished cooking and went back to sewing again.

Sometime passed and then we saw a white van pull into our back yard. Mom went out to greet them and invited them into the house. There was an elderly man name Dennis Anatole from Trembler Lake [near the small town of Fort St James which is three hours away] who knows our grandmother from when they were younger. He felt in his Spirit that he was getting too old and wanted to meet with Aneh one last time. His family brought him up to visit with Aneh. Mom set the table and they ate supper with us. Afterwards, David and Aneh talked, laughed, and shared old stories. It was pleasant watching them catch up with each other. Later when they were leaving, mom gave them bannock and fried moose meat as they went on their way home.

We didn’t have to say a word; we knew that our mother’s premonition was at work again. This happened way before telephones came to our community so there was no way to know in advance that these people were coming to visit except through mother’s six sense. As children, we saw many times mother’s clairvoyance at work in various interactions between our parents in everyday situations. It was just a normal part of our existence. We never questioned her.

Another example of this was when dad goes hunting and maybe gone for the whole day out in the woods hunting for moose. Mom would be sewing or sometimes cooking, and she would FEEL exactly the same time when dad shoots a moose. She would go, “Oh!” and the side of her body would move, and she would say, “Daddy got a moose!”. She would jump up to prepare and get ready for him, and without fail every time, dad would come in with a fresh kill. She was always right. It was while watching their interactions in these circumstances that I became aware, understood, and bridged the connection to WHY we are related to our ENVIRONMENT.

I thought of the wisdom of our Ancestors that knew something about this connection by the way they conveyed their speaking by using phrases like, “Mother Earth, Father Sky”, and referring to the animal kingdom as, “Brothers and Sisters.” They were governed, connected to the natural energy field in their whole environment, they followed the life cycle of the four seasons that they live by. Their point of view for living was from a Spiritual standpoint, and didn't separate the natural from the Spiritual; the two were one and the same.

The natural life cycle of our food chain comes from the wilderness, the air, trees, the berries we pick and eat, the mountains, streams, lakes, the animals, fish and fowls that hunt, eat and live across the vast landscape, the salmon travels to the ocean and back. Then we in turn hunt and live off these animals, and this is how we become one and the same and are connected to our environment. We live and show respect to the earth and only take out and use what’s needed to survive and thus keeping the balance. We become part of the Air, trees, valley, mountains, streams and lakes. All the animals are ONE. We live and show respect to the earth, our area, and only take out and use what’s needed to survive and thus keeping the balance, while the life cycle continues foreword”.

A big thanks to Robert for sharing this story with us! If you have any questions or comments, please post below. If you have a story that you would like to share, send an email with your story idea to communications@csfs.org. We are always on the lookout for culture blog submissions! You can learn more about what we are looking for by checking our News feed.

© Carrier Sekani Family Services, 2017 on behalf of Robert Abraham. Written by Robert Abraham. All rights reserved.