In the Northern Hemisphere, December 21 will be the day of the year with the least sunlight, when the sun follows its lowest and shortest path across the sky. North of the Arctic Circle this will be the center of the period of darkness, when even twilight does not reach the horizon. Just like before the solar eclipse in August, in December we asked our native friends to share the traditions they had heard about the winter solstice. Their answers emphasize winter as a time for storytelling.
Editor’s note: This article first appeared on the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian website in December 2017. Used with permission. All rights reserved.
Ojibwe (Minnesota Chippewa Tribe): This description of winter in many indigenous communities was prepared by the Indian Land Tenure Foundation/Lessons of Our Land as background for teachers:
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Like many events in Native American culture, there is an appropriate time and place for all activities. Traditional storytelling is reserved for the winter months for many tribes. This was a practical choice considering that during the other seasons people were busy growing, gathering and hunting food. It was in the winter, with the long dark evenings and the snow and the wind outside, that storytelling was a way to entertain and educate the children. Another reason is that many traditional stories contain animal characters. Out of respect, people waited until winter, when animals hibernate or become less active, so they can no longer be heard talking about themselves.
When you let a storyteller tell you a story, it’s like receiving a gift. Out of respect, the narrator is offered a gift of tobacco before the story begins. Often the narrator takes the tobacco outside and places it on the earth as an offering to the spirits of the story.
San Carlos Apache (Arizona): This reminds me of when I was young. My grandfather would ask a very older man to come visit. We would eat; they would come visit, smoke. Then my grandfather put a bundle at his feet. Soon he started telling stories most of the night.
Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin: We have to wait for the Winter Moon, and for those stories there has to be snow on Mother Earth.
Blackfoot (Calgary, Alberta): Blackfoots are the same with the snow and stories.
Acoma Pueblo (New Mexico): The winter solstice marks our new year in Acoma. We mark time with ceremonies that are not open to the public.
It is also the time of haamaahatelling stories about the coyote, stories about heroes, stories about the animals, sharing knowledge. My parents said that when you call haamaaha, people arrive with piñon nuts collected in the fall to be roasted and shared.
Passamaquoddy (New England): In traditional calendars in the Northeast, the solstice is always marked. For my parents it is a sign that the ice giants are returning to the north.
Assiniboine/Sioux (South Dakota): Waniyetu [winter]– time to gather kan’sa’sa [red willow bark] while the thunder is gone.
Syilx (Washington State and British Columbia): What I know is that this marks the time when our winter ceremonies can be held. My grandmother sometimes held her first ceremony of the winter during this powerful time. We have winter dance ceremonies; prayers for the coming new year, for the berries, roots, quadrupeds and fish – the four Food Chefs; prayers for our families and ourselves. There are songs, dancing, parties and a give-away. This is held in the evening and can last all night depending on the number of sacred singers who come to share. The ceremonies are called winter dances. Or my grandfather also called them Chinook dances. In our area to the south, in Washington State, around Nespelem, my grandfather told me about a dance ceremony that lasted ten nights in a row!
Dennis W. Zotigh (Kiowa/San Juan Pueblo/Santee Dakota Indian) is a member of the Kiowa Gourd Clan and San Juan Pueblo Winter Clan and a descendant of Sitting Bear and No Retreat, both major war leaders of the Kiowas. Dennis works as a writer and cultural specialist at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC
