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Hul'qumi'num Winter by © vatooz As the warm days come to an end the spirits start on their journey home families who have planned work in the big house have been busy cutting and splitting wood for the large fires which will be build on the hard dirt floors of these ancient wooden shrines. Others have been busy buying things that will be distributed to the crowd after their family work is completed Mountains of gifts will be passed out to those who wittnessed the work that has taken place. There are blankets, sweaters, hats, gloves, socks, scarves, food, toys, candy and many other sorts of gifts that have been prepared for each night. Each event will have a meal that will be served to all the guests who have travelled from near and far. Guests from neighboring first nations will be seated in their regular areas, Musqueam, Saanich, Nanaimo, Nitinat, Malahat, Lummni, these are some of our neighbors. Of course the members of ur own nations will be escorted to their traditional seating areas. By time the night rolls in there will be close to two thousand people in the big house. Many will have their faces painted either black or red depending on what sort of dancer they are. There will be many new dancers seated through out the crowd. They stand out as they are holding their long poles which are decorated with feathers and other sacred objects. they also wear their hair hats which conceal their faces this along with their traditional garb make for quite a stunning picture. When you are sitting in the big house and the three large fires are burning and the drummers which could number around two hundred start their drumming and the different singers start singing and each dancer is caling up their spirit by making a crying sound and you have all those painted faces sitting in the bleachers it is like a time machine that sends you back a few hundred years. To hear the main speakers using the traditional language makes it even more so. These gatherings continue until the first croaking frog of spring is heard. In the meanwhile new dancers are grabbed from the communities and taken to secret places where they will start to learn the sacred teachings of our culture. They will undergo a very strict training session which will last about three months. The older dancers open the season and each will share their song and each will share their familys dance . The use of the masked dancers is only for special events and important work. To see these special dancers is something that one will not soon forget. Many traditional burnings happen through out the season. People will burn food in memory of those who have gone on . These burnings are very important and how they are prepared and how they are carried thru are critical to the work being succesful. The big house events go on thru the night and some last for many days. There is much more that happens at these events but I thought I would share a small peek at what is happening in my corner of the world at this time of the year. If you would like to know more about my culture check out my friend Brian Thom's Web site on Coast Salish Culture. Brian works with me here at the Treaty Office. We represent over 6ooo members which include the Cowichan, Penelakut, Halalt, Chemainus, Lyackson and Lake Cowichan First Nations. Part of my work is to collect the oral history of our elders this is a very interesting part of my job. There are many people who have studied our culture and history so a good deal of my time is spent in reviewing all of this material as well as new information relating to lands and resources and also culture and language. We meet with the federal and provincial negotiators on a regular basis and are making good headway in making a treaty that will work for our childrens future and make up for some of the damage done to our people in the past.