Lethbridge School district No. 51 celebrated a monumental event on Thursday morning to mark National Indigenous Peoples Day: its very own teepee transfer ceremony.
After obtaining its own teepee last year, the school district worked with Elders and students at Victoria Park High School to emblazon the fabric with student art. After a month of painting, the teepee was ready to be officially transferred.
“We’ve always contracted out teepees,” said Kendall Good Rider, FNMI school liaison with Victoria Park High School, “but we purchased this one last year and we really wanted to get it painted, so this is the first time we’ve ever had our own painted one.”
However, the process of decorating this new teepee with cultural art was not as simple as just painting it, as there were several appropriate channels of permission to go through before starting the art process.
“It’s much like contracting a house,” Elder Bruce Wolf Child explained. “You must first get permission from an Elder to actually paint the teepee — it’s an important process.”
The school district and 14 students at the school were granted permission from an Elder and worked closely with him during the month-long painting process. Now that is complete, the teepee officially went through the transfer process.
“Transferring the teepee is something that is very, very important that you have to do,” Wolf Child said. “It gives you your right to own, nobody can copy, nobody else can have that.”
During the transfer, Blackfoot cultural protocols called for the teepee to be designated to both a male and female caretaker
Moving forward, the piece will be available to all schools within the district and will also serve as a teaching tool for cultural learning to take place.
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