Teepee Teachings

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A Pimicikamak Teaching on Lodges and Life

Mînânokîhitowin nitôtêmuk — greetings, my relatives.
 
Let me tell you a story now, not written in ink but carried by the smoke of the sacred fire and the wind that dances through spruce boughs. It’s a story our grandmothers told by starlight, when the world slowed down enough to listen.
 
This is the story of the teepee. But more than that — it’s the teachings it holds, teachings stitched into every pole and bound by every sinew.
 
Long ago, before cities carved up the land and the sound of traffic drowned out the heartbeat of the Earth, our Peoples lived in rhythm with the seasons. And wherever we traveled, we brought our homes with us — the mîkiwâhp, the teepee. But this wasn’t just shelter. It was a living prayer, a symbol of balance and sacred law.
 
There were fifteen poles, each one holding a teaching. Not just wood — but responsibility.
 
The first three poles are the foundation:
Obedience – not the kind that silences you, but the kind that listens. Listening to the land, to your Elders, to your dreams.
Respect – for all living things, for yourself, for the water, for the winged ones, and the crawling ones too.
Humility – because we are not greater than the smallest rock or the tallest tree. We are only one strand in the great web of life.
 
The fourth pole is Love — strong, enduring, unconditional. It holds the whole lodge together. Without love, nothing stands.
 
Then came the others:
Faith, Kinship, Cleanliness, Thankfulness, Sharing, Strength, Good Child Rearing, Hope, Ultimate Protection, and Control.
Each pole, a teaching. Each teaching, a way to live. You didn’t just learn them with your ears — you lived them with your hands and your heart.
 
Our nôhkom, she used to say, “The teepee is the first classroom. The first place we learn how to be human beings.”
When a woman builds her teepee, she ties the poles with care. She chooses each one not just for strength, but for its meaning.
 
She wraps the canvas like a blanket around the bones of the lodge, and when the smoke hole opens to the sky, it’s like the lodge is breathing with the stars.
 
And the doorway? It always faces East — toward the rising sun, toward new beginnings, toward kîsikâw, the blessing of another day.
 
Even the fire in the centre, that sacred fire, teaches us. It tells us to gather, to speak truth, to offer tobacco when we ask questions, and to leave silence when someone else speaks.
 
So when you see a teepee, remember: it’s not just a structure. It’s a mirror of the universe. It teaches us how to walk with humility, how to raise our children with gentleness, how to live in a circle where no one stands above the other.
 
These teachings were never meant to stay locked away in the past. They live on, in us. In the way we gather. In the way we forgive. In the way we stand together when the winds come hard against us.
 
Because the teepee bends in the storm — but it does not break.
And neither do we.
 
mîkwêc nitôtêmuk. May you walk well with these teachings. May your own lodge — of family, of spirit, of community — always stand in balance. Always rooted. Always sacred.
T
apwe,
 
—Kanipawit Maskwa
John Gonzalez
Standing Bear Network
 
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