A man puts away a Tim Hortons cup so that his hands can cup the smoke of cedar, sweetgrass, tobacco, and sage burning inside a glimmering semi-circular shell.
“You put [the smoke] over your head to clear your mind . . . your eyes so that you can see good things, speak good things, hear good things and say good things,” Mervin Leclair said.
Leclair joined the third annual round dance held by Carleton’s Centre for Aboriginal Culture and Education at Porter Hall Feb. 2. He carried the shell around the hall, waving an eagle feather to keep the herbs burning.
More than a 100 people — aboriginal and non-aboriginal — gathered there. A few wore traditional outfits with braided patterns. Some wore moccasins, a soft-soled leather shoe.
“It’s nice to see everybody not round dancing in a mall for a change,” said Ryan McMahon, an Ojibwa/Métis comedian and the event’s co-host.
“We’re not going to get kicked out from here, I’ll tell you that.”
The indigenous advocacy movement Idle No More organized round dances in malls and in front of legislative buildings in Saskatoon, Hamilton, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Ottawa.
Carleton’s round dance was not directly associated with the movement.
“[Idle No More] will be evergreen and keep evolving,” said attendee Melissa Girard.
Round dances happen for various reasons, such as when someone passes away or is born, said event co-host Aaron Benson, who is also Ojibwa.
“It’s a friendship dance,” Girard said of the round dance at Carleton.
Parts of Western Canada hold round dances every weekend during the winter, but the dances are less common in the East, Benson said.
“Now everything is coming the way it should be, and people [in the East] are getting stronger.”
Benson said this is part of the reason Carleton began the annual round dance three years ago.
McMahon described how aboriginal people balance keeping the old and picking up the new.
“When you go out West, those round dances will go until three, four, five in the morning . . . but our singers have requested an early evening because they want to go watch the UFC pay-per-view.”
