A young Indigenous woman from Regina says she feels like she’s lost a part of herself after her regalia was stolen out of a truck in a Winnipeg parking lot.
Jesse Kaiswatum said she is heading into Winnipeg this weekend to compete in the Manito Ahbee Festival‘s pow wow competition. Not having a lot of room in her uncle’s truck, she sent her regalia, dresses and feathers up to Winnipeg with her mother, who drove into the city yesterday.
Her mother called her Thursday morning to say the truck had been broken into at their hotel on York Street and all her regalia stolen.
“I use it as a way to pray,” said Kaiswatum. “To pray for my family, to be with my loved ones, when I dance. It’s a way to be with people you love.”
Every regalia piece is as individual as the person, said Kaiswatum, and takes months or years to put together. As the person grows, the regalia is added to or changed, and therefore, it has no immediate value except to the person and family it belongs to.
“Me and my mom made it when I first started dancing, we added to it for months and years.”
Kaiswatum described the regalia’s beadwork as in a black Pendleton design, and includes a beaded cape, blue skirt, white beaded skirt, scarves, ribbon skirts, blue shawl, a back piece and moccassins and leggings.
Anyone with information on the regalia is asked to call Winnipeg police.
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