AWAKEN TO PEACE AND LOVE

~NATURES LAW~ ~EXPLAINING ***INKOZE OR INKONZE***

Kinship has a larger meaning than in English. Traditionally, long-departed ancestors remain closely recognized kin, as do animals related to one's totem (i.e. Bear). An example is the Athapaskan word for inkoze (inkonze in some sources). It is often used in different ways in different contexts. Inkoze refers in many instances to having power and knowledge, with no distinction between those two terms.

However it may be used, inkoze is a gift from the animals which, because they are persons (and because they have more power than they need to survive), they are obliged to share with those humans who have maintained a proper reciprocity and a proper state of moral rectitude. "The proper moral state" means that humans carry out certain rituals of respect, that is, make certain sacrifices (such as sprinkling tobacco in the place where one has taken power roots, placing tobacco or meat offerings into the fire, and a number of other observances e.g. proper butchering procedure; obeying menstrual taboos; trying always to be generous; treating human people and animal ‘people’ with respect; avoiding sexual transgression)… Indeed, "for the Chipewyan, maintaining good relationships with other humans has always been extremely important in an immediate way, for reasons of practical survival. Disruption in the human social community also redounds to cause a breakdown in communication with the animals – a dominant motif in stories" (Drawn from Smith, World as Event, pp. 77)

In effect, then, traditionally animals monitored human social order and administered judgment to humans based on perceived imbalances. Our legal system has no equivalent to this monitoring feature of the animals.

All of these points provide a way to comprehend and contextualize Western studies of kinship. For example, Hind's early book on Algonquian-speaking peoples reflects the norms of kinship that prevailed, as well as the relative resilience of the norms:

The ties of kindred and relationship are of a very complex character among the Ojibways; in more than one instance a singular exemplification of cross-relationship occurred during our voyage on lakes Winnipeg and Manitobah which is perhaps worthy of being recorded, as it may serve to show the permanency of ancient customs and traditions among families now dwelling nearly a thousand miles west of the hunting grounds of their ancestors. Near the mouth of the Little Saskatchewan, we met an Indian family in small canoes journeying towards the mouth of the Red River. The family consisted of a young Indian, his wife and two little children. The father was born on the shores of Lake Winnipeg, and had never travelled east of the lake. After a few words passed between him and a half-breed Ojibway from Lake Superior, (Wigwam), they shook hands and proclaimed themselves related to one another. Each belonged, as I was informed, to the tribe which bore the name of the ‘Bear’ and having by some means which Wigwan could not or would not explain, ascertained this fact, they spoke to one another as brothers. A similar relationship was established between Wigwam and another Ojibway on Moss River, solely as he informed me, because his own and his newly-found friend belonged to a tribe whose distinctive name was the ‘Bear.’ The Cree half-breeds told me that in their communication with the Ojibway of Lake Winnipeg, and further west, the recognition of relationship not infrequently took place between individuals who met for the first time and who were born and lived in districts far apart (113).

This suggests that kinship is not based exactly on blood-lines, but rather can have a considerable cultural content, i.e., if one belonged to the Bear totem, one has a solid connection to other Bear people, even if they speak a different language and live in a different area. Kinship, then, can have a marked cultural component.

Tellingly, Indigenous kinship is even more complex than this. Certain life situations may suggest mythic parallels, as Desveaux points out in Sous le signe de l‘ours; what is striking in this study is that the Algonquian-speaking Ojibways of Big Trout Lake in northwestern Ontario tell mythic stories of great ancestors’ behaviour that is repugnant to today’s moral values, where, for example, the daughters of the old Wemeshos lived successively with a young man, a celestial being, and a sacred animal. While such adulterous activity is decried in ordinary society, the point is clearly not the adultery. Rather human families reflect diversity because of their mythic origins, requiring them to sometimes make strange alliances in order to maintain who they really are.

In effect, then, tracking some aspect of the myth in family life retains the tri-partite wholeness of the triad cosmos/ human/animal of the original story. The result is that the family is religiously-connected to the ancestor through the marriage alliance or rejection of the same, but is also an expression of a cosmic value system (Desveaux, pp. 171-174).

Moreover, such an outcome begins to throw light on why some marriage/alliances cannot/will not be made, while others that appear so strange are successful. The reason lies in the ancestry of the proposed new pair, and whether their alliance will reflect something of the mythic characteristic resident in the powerful old story. In traditional Amerindian societies, such as we are discussing, a very old, astute and insightful woman might retain the mythic tales of the various families, as well as the community as a whole, and very often, sometimes as soon as children are born, discussions of possible alliances take place in the background.

What seems to be going on in these discussions is an aligning of the lives of the children with cosmic and animal forces, forces that are held to have activated the original ancestral connection. The result is that even in those cultures that did not espouse totemic icons as organizing principles among families, myth continued to give marriages a religio-cultural meaning. Furthermore, depths of meaning in marriage such as these indicate why traditional family alliances were the bedrock of these cultures.

Copyright © 2004 Heritage Community Foundation , Chief Wayne Roan and Earle Waugh, PhD. All Rights Reserved

~INKOZE~

http://www.albertasource.ca/natureslaws/culture/relational_kinship_...

David M. Smith : "Aspects of Chipewyan Ontology".

~Inkonze (‘spiritual power’)~

"The hunters that I knew among the Chipewyan of Great Slave lake deliberately tried to dream about what they needed to know to bring about success."

"In the case of the Chipewyan of Great Slave Lake, most animals are regarded as being superior to humans rather than the reverse. ... The superiority of the animals relates to the fact that they have more inkonze (medicine power or knowledge) than humans and are the chief source of this essential for maintaining successful connectedness with reality."

"As an old man ... told me : "... It’s the animals that give inkonze to the people. Animals are always the best medicine people."" "But the animals are more than mentors ...; they are models for proper moral conduct."

"The Chipewyan term inkonze ... may be translated, "to know something a little." This means, as well, to have power. In its most important form this knowledge comes to a person in his or her dreams."

"Medicine power dreams can come to any hunter, and any hunter can try to dream in order to discover that which he needs to know to be more successful. Every hunter I knew had a medicine bundle (or "bag," as they themselves referred to them in English) for hunting, and it was my understanding that the contents of these bundles – which are never shown to, or discussed in depth with, anybody – were based upon what they had learned in their dreams."

"The especially gifted have much more intensive and extensive communion with an animal (or animals) ... than the average person because their dreams are much more vivid and eventful. They also are those who are "called to the roots" ... . In most cases, these dreams begin in childhood as the same animal appears over and over in the person’s dreams. ... These specially gifted people – whom I hereafter call inkonze helin ("one is inkonze" ...) ... – are the ones preeminently able to serve society through curing, improving hunting, seeing things and events at a distance (and in the furture), effecting weather changes, and much more, all based on what they learn from the animals who are their special mentors. ... The inkonze helin can also can use their knowledge to ... bring about an enemy’s ... insanity".

"However it may be used, inkonze is a gift from the animals which, because they are persons (and because they have more power than they need to survive), they are obliged to share with those humans who have maintained a proper reciprocity and a proper state of moral rectitude ... . The proper moral state means that humans make certain sacrifices (such as sprinkling tobacco in the place where one has taken power roots, placing ... meat offerings into the fire, and ...

trying always to be generous ...). ... Bad or immoral actions mean that no animals will appear in dreams, and that no animals will offer themselves to hunters, or permit themselves to be trapped."

"Animals come as helpers only to individuals." "Because of their great inkonze, the animals are capable of assuming human guises ... . Some of the inkonze helin are able to transform themselves into the guise of the "animal that helps them"".

"The particular kind of animal who communicates with the inkonze

helin in dreams often accounts for the nature of one’s abilities in using inkonze. Thus, if one is a curer, one is apt to have an animal such as a mouse for a helper, for mice people live on and in the ground and therefore know root medicines quite well. {Apollon "is represented carrying a mouse in his hands" (AT, s.v. "Smintheus"); and is a god of medicines.} ... Eagle power would be important for, say, locating a caribou herd or finding a lost possession".

[Slave-Lake C^ipewyan autobiography about inkonze] "The calling comes to me like a chopping ... . I hear it – chopping, chopping; ... I know ... that it’s the animal that I dream ... . I feel like I’m on fire".

"inkonze helin who are reputable curers ... use dreams and sing and play on their drums to ... cure".

"When someone goes to the roots it is a real place in the bush, and the person is fully awake ... . ...

The animal appears – not the animal’s vaporous spirit but the entire animal – and communicates with the person, giving instructions on the use of power roots, power songs, decorations for one’s drum".

"it’s inkonze. The old man dreams the mink who tells him what is going to happen. The mink likes him, wants to be his helper. After that, ... their luck gets better and better."

AT = http://www.theoi.com/Cult/ApollonTitles.html

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pp. 93-104 – 7. Henry S. Sharp : "Non-Directional Time and the Dene Life-Cycle".

"The Dene think that inkoze will keep men active and able to participate in bush subsistence activities until they reach an extremely advanced age."

"Inkoze is the term applied to the use of power / knowledge to kill by sorcery."

"The reality of time created by inkoze is, in some aspects of Dene cultural usage, more like the West thinks of place. In the realm of inkoze, space can fold upon itself and connect parts of itself in ways that bridge time. ... Within inkoze, time has this character of place and connection within what is always true ... . Events exist "simultaneously" regardless of how human senses perceive them." {cf. Priestly’s "dream-like ... theories about time" : "time ... is actually an illusion in the way that we perceive reality".}

"Newborn infants are watched, ... to see if they display physical characteristics or mannerisms reminiscent of deceased Dene. If such are noted, the infant’s living kin identify the infant with the decedent – usually a close relative – and publically name the decedent as now embodied in the infant. Such identifications between living infant and decedent Dene often cross gender categories".

"... ghosts lurking around Dene habitations, awaiting pregnant women in whom they can be reborn."

Dene "who were not satisfied with the manner and timing of their death, were able to intentionally seek out pregnant women for rebirth. ... The deceased must appear to the mother-to-be in a dream and ask her permission to be born again in the fetus she is carrying."

"At death, the deceased move back into that realm of inkoze from which they emerged".

Time to get back to nature...observation mode recommended.
Peace and good fortune 2 all...
Tara

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