Creation story

Amelia McGregor picks redcurrant berries at her home in Kahnawake. (Credit: Simona Rosenfield)

Story told by: Amelia McGregor

I don’t know if Spirit up there, somewhere, is watching over us. When things happen, you go back to your Creation Story, and Creation Story tells us that when we’re born, we come from Spirit World, and we come into this physical world to have an experience of what it’s like to be physical. And then, we return home, because home is there, not here.

In order for us to go home, everybody comes into this physical world with a stick, and that stick has notches in it. When those notches are done, that’s when our life ends.

Then we go back to the Spirit World where Creation says that we were made from clay, from Mother Earth. That’s why we belong to Mother Earth.

That’s where our responsibility goes and comes from.

When we do the Ohén:ton Karihwatéhkwen, which are the words that come before all else, that’s all we need in our life. We are reminded to be grateful for Mother Earth who sustained us, and in that sustenance she provides, she gives us clean air that we can breathe, all the fish life that we eat and enjoy, fresh water that we can drink, so we never are thirsty, and so on, all the way.