Moss Bag Babies

Safe, snug, secure.

I work in the Communications Department of a First Nations Organization. I love my job! Every day I get to write about what our org. is up to; attend events, workshops and conferences that we host in order to document and write stories about them for our website: www.mfnerc.org.
Yesterday I took part in a workshop that truly spoke to my spirit. And the woman who was presenting said that if your spirit is stirred, then you know it’s the truth. It was a workshop on the traditional teachings of Moss Bags or Tikanaugan. She spoke of how, traditionally, women carried babies on their backs (girls over their shoulder, boys on their back facing out) so the babies could develop their 4 sacred gifts – Sight, Smell, Taste and Hearing.

As I said in one of my previous blog posts, I’m one of those people who believes that, when it comes to how we should live in the world, the First Nations people had it right. Baby girls watched their mothers gathering berries, tanning hides, smoking meat, and tending the fires so they could see, smell, taste and listen to what was going on. So they could learn how to be a woman in their tribe. Boys faced out so they could watch the world around them, the sun and stars, the animals, and other members of the community. So they could learn how to be a man in their tribe. Yet the whole time, both boys and girls felt safe and secure, senses on alert, upright in the world, while completely attached to their mother.

What a beautiful way to start life in this world! I'm not doing it justice with this small post so I encourage you to google "Moss Bags" or "Tikanaugan", but the teachings made perfect sense to me...And I even got to make my own Moss Bag Baby. The workshop presenter told us that she often gets asked by young First Nations parents: Did we lose our parenting skills because of Residential Schools? And can we get them back? With beautiful, truthful teachings such as this, the only answer is a resounding yes. 

My own Moss Bag creation.