THE EAGLE FEATHER
FROM JUNE/JULY 2021 ISSUE OF WEST END PHOENIX
It was the beginning of August and the days were already cooling down.
I’d been visiting my grandparents in B.C. for a week or so and was becoming accustomed to the daily routine.
Every morning at around 5 a.m., my grandpa would wake me up and pack a little bag and we’d head to the Maple Ridge Leisure Center’s community swimming pool.
There was an Olympic-size pool there and a kiddie pool where I’d go splashing around while he’d swim laps. The local paper, Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows News, even wrote about him and all the laps that he used to swim.
Afterwards we’d head on home and I’d help my grandmother with the chores. I’d go down to the barn and help her let the horses out and we’d clean the stalls. I’d sometimes collect eggs from the chicken coop, but that job was pretty much taken away from me when she saw that I’d been dropping them in the pail and making my own scramble rather than carefully laying them to rest. Every day was like this and I loved it.
In the afternoons, I’d ride around the Lower Mainland in a big beige Mercury as my grandpa went to make calls door to door. He sold Encyclopedia Brittanicas for a while, then siding for houses.
The old Mercury had an eight-track player and he’d school me on music by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee or Little Walter. I found out just how great a piano player Nat King Cole was while driving around in that car.
Going to the Mission powwow with my grandpa, who was Mohawk, every summer had also become a tradition. I heard both Elijah Harper and Chief Dan George speak there. On this particular day it was overcast as my grandpa and I set out in that big ole Mercury. It’s about an hour’s drive from Maple Ridge to Mission and we made it there in the early afternoon.
As we walked around, eating some bannock, my grandpa stopped and stood incredibly still. He turned to me and said, “We must go and watch the dancers right now. Someone has dropped an Eagle feather.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, but I was young, and when he told me things I listened.
You see, when someone drops an Eagle feather, you can’t just pick it up. There’s a special ceremony and only an Elder can retrieve the sacred feather.
As the two of us sat on the wooden bleachers we watched as the field that was filled with dancers emptied out. The sky was still grey and overcast when the Elders came out and circled the fallen feather on the ground. They danced around it slowly as the singers and the drums resonated like thunder.
What happened next was extraordinary.
Minutes after the ceremony began, out of the clouds flew a bald Eagle. It was majestic as its wingspan hovered over the dancers. At the same time the sky parted and a ray of light broke through the clouds.
As the dancers moved, the bird of prey moved with them, and when the eldest of the dancers leaned down to pick up the fallen feather, he and the Eagle connected as if a signal had been passed on through the two spirits.
At that moment the Eagle flew out of sight and the ceremony ended. The clouds that were once blocking the sun came back too.
My grandpa looked at me and smiled and the only thing he said to me was, “See.” And I did.