As part of the Sacred Child Program, Elaine Kicknosway co-ordinates an aboriginal children’s art program.
Her childhood name was Apachitwane, the one who falls or stumbles a lot.
Her name as a young woman was Piyatokemoyin, the one who is peaceful, humble and quiet.
Now her name is Pizoukwe – the one who knows the secrets – both the good and bad.
This is how Elaine Kicknosway introduces herself at ceremonies and these names reveal a lot about who she was and who she has become.
Finding her identity as an aboriginal woman wasn’t easy – as a two-year-old she was put into foster homes and eventually adopted by a white family – but Kicknosway, 43, has done it.
As the co-ordinator of the Sacred Child Program at Minwaashin Lodge, a centre for aboriginal women who’ve experienced domestic violence or the intergenerational effects of residential schools, she now works with parents and children to help them reconnect with their culture and themselves.
“It always goes full circle,” Kicknosway says. “It’s our women raising attention to each other, saying ‘you know why I know that?’ – Because I’ve lived it.”
Surrounded by the hustle and bustle of Minwaashin on a busy morning, Kicknosway takes a sip of tea and places her mug on the table in front of her.
With brightly coloured beaded earrings hanging from her ears and her long black hair tied into braids, Kicknosway rests her chin on hands clasped in front of her as she quietly describes her childhood.
The youngest girl of 13 children born to a mother with tuberculosis, Kicknosway’s 10- and 11-year-old sisters did their best to take care of her. One day when her grandfather was out hunting, a big black car took her and her sister Dora away from her northern Saskatchewan home of Denare Beach.
Kicknosway was bounced from one foster home to another for two years and some experiences have stuck with her.
“I have physical memories,” Kicknosway says. “I have scars on my body related to foster care. I have memories of being so hungry I would hide food.”
At four and a half, a white family from Saskatoon adopted Kicknosway through Saskatchewan’s Adopt an Indian Métis program.
In her adopted home, Kicknosway says she was loved, well fed and clothed and went to school. But her adoptive family wasn’t told she was from the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation, so she grew up without a sense of where she came from.
Her parents moved to Ottawa when Kicknosway was 14. While attending Glebe Collegiate, she began drinking and using drugs and eventually left her adoptive home.
Kicknosway dropped out of high school and began couch-surfing. At 15, she was in an abusive relationship.
It wasn’t until a social services program found her a job at Colonel By Child Care Centre that things began to turn around. The co-ordinator encouraged her to study early childhood education.
Accepted at Loyalist College in Belleville, Kicknosway stuck with it.
At 25, with $7 and a garbage bag of clothes, Kicknosway found the strength to leave her abusive relationship behind and made her way back to Ottawa.
Still struggling with alcohol addiction, Kicknosway found her way to Minwaashin and hesitantly began taking part in talking circles, meeting elders and learning about her culture. For the first time, Kicknosway began to feel a sense of belonging.
With Minwaashin’s support as she struggled to figure out who she was, Kicknosway stopped drinking. She’s been sober 13 years.
“I saw a bunch of women that were just really happy to be themselves and they were sober. I couldn’t imagine what that was like,” she says.
“[I thought] they must lead such boring lives, but they had a spark in them, in their eyes, on their skin, in their attitude and their confidence.”
Karen MacInnis, who has known Kicknosway for 11 years and worked with her at Minwaashin, sees inner growth in the transformation of Kicknosway’s singing voice.
“I remember Elaine when Elaine talked like this,” whispers MacInnis, who is Chippewa from Walpole Island First Nation.
“Elaine didn’t have a voice. Through her singing, through joining a drum circle, her little voice changed to this very powerful voice.”
But the experience of violence has had long-lasting effects for Kicknosway.
Sometimes she still feels all alone in the world. When she was pregnant, she was terrified she would have a girl who would be sexually abused or taken by the Children’s Aid Society.
Not everyone comes to the Sacred Child Program with the experience of violence, but many do.
Kicknosway says sharing her story can be part of the healing.
“It validates it did happen. As an adult, you can take care of that part that was hurt and reaffirm it and make sure that it never happens again,” she says as her eyes fill with tears. “Because it is just wrong.”
A wolf adorns Kicknosway’s red sweater. As a member of the wolf clan, she is a tracker and finds resources for parents who want to learn more about their culture.
Colonization separated Aboriginal Peoples from their culture, MacInnis says.
“Often we have struggled with who we are and our self-belief, following our culture and taking pride in who we are, being able to stand up and say, ‘I’m an aboriginal person,’” she says.
Lacking that sense of belonging means some aboriginal youth feel so isolated they take their own lives, says Kicknosway.
Teaching children to drum, feast and dance reaffirms who they are.
“I have to be really blunt with the workers,” Kicknosway says about working with the Children’s Aid Society.
“Our children need to feel a part of the community and when you take them out and put them in non-aboriginal homes it starts that cycle all over again.”
The people around her see the way Kicknosway is making a difference.
MacInnis sees a woman who is a role model for a traditional way of life and who reaches out to people with her heart, with no judgement.
“I’ve seen families being held together,” says MacInnis. “I’ve seen parents, particularly mothers, change behaviours in their children in a more positive direction. I’ve seen people find self-esteem.”
Ida Meekis, Kicknosway’s assistant, says she admires her friend’s commitment to bringing culture to the community.
“We could be snowshoeing on a Saturday afternoon and she could just have a thought on how she could fundraise for people. It’s not just nine to five, Monday to Friday,” says the Oji-Cree member of the sucker clan.
“There is always a thought to help the people.”
Kicknosway’s husband Vince, who is Potawatomi from Walpole Island, says learning to love herself has enhanced his wife’s ability to empower others and help them realize their own gifts.
“When oneself can find the beauty within and express that on a day-to-day basis, [and say] this is some of the things that I’ve learned to recognize within myself, the aura and energy that resonates from that, it’s transferable.”
Kicknosway says she thinks things are changing. As a member of the aboriginal liaison committee with Children’s Aid, Kicknosway advocates for more cultural awareness.
“Maybe one day our children won’t struggle with their identity,” she says. “One day they won’t know what abuse is or feel bullied at school.”
Despite all she does, Kicknosway would be the first to say she can’t do it alone.
Still, she does what she can.
When Kicknosway is gone, she’ll leave behind the story of her life. She knows her youth and life as a young woman was troubled, but she hopes she’s weaving a better story now.
“Maybe they’ll tell good stories about me when I was a child and I hope they tell better stories about when I was an adult, as a mother, as a dancer, as a sister.”