Evolution of Sex Roles in Healing Ceremonies

Becoming a laborer is just one of the many changes that took place to change the traditional role of Ojibwa women. However, these women also faced the difficulty of leaving their traditional caretaker role. Not unfamiliar to Ojibwa women is the male dominated society that viewed women as kinship managers, child-bearers, gatherers, and wives. With the economic shift, this role became dampened.

  • Historically, and in relation to the motherly role, women are the main healers in many societies (Struthers, 2000).
  • Healing in Ojibwa culture fashioned itself in the Jingle Dress and Dance, a healing ceremony. Not only is the dress itself made most commonly by women, but it is overwhelmingly worn by women, a tradition going back approximately two centuries according to one Indigenous woman (Stegner, 2008).
  • The Jingle Dress and Dance ceremony was a sort of powwow not unknown to Western culture - one filled with colorful regalia, music, drums, dancing, and singing.

A shift took place regarding the actors in these ceremonies. Previously, and although women most largely represented the healers, males were typically the ones dancing in the ceremonies while the women watched and took care of the community (Stegner, 2008). Over time the two roles became intertwined such that women were healers and thus, they were Jingle Dress Dancers. Unfortunately, this tradition slowly died out until the rebirth and revamping of it in the late twentieth century. Now it is predominantly women performing the Jingle ceremony to this day as a way to showcase the resiliency of the Ojibwa to overcome the dominant culture of North America.

Citations

Struthers, Roxanne. (September 2000). The Lived Experience of Ojibwa and Cree Women Healers. American Holistic Nurses' Association: Journal of Holistic Nursing Vol. 18 No. 3 (pgs 261-279)

Stegner, Irmgard. (Fall 2008). The History, Symbolism, Spirituality, and Transformation of the Jingle Dress and Dance of the North-Eastern Woodlands Indians. Ottawa, Canada: Library and Archives Canada.

Evolution of Sex Roles in Healing Ceremonies