Aboriginal Day
Lennox Island plays host to MCPEI’s National Aboriginal Day celebrations
Traditional Mi’kmaq singing, dancing, drumming and prayer were featured during National Aboriginal Day celebrations Wednesday at Lennox Island. Seventeen yearold Faith Myers was still beaming after reciting a prayer in Mi’kmaq.
Traditional Mi’kmaq singing, dancing, drumming and prayer were featured during National Aboriginal Day celebrations Wednesday at Lennox Island. Seventeen year-old Faith Myers recited a prayer in Mi’kmaq. “I was so flattered that I was asked to do that,” said Miss Lennox Island 2016 moments before crowning her successor. She said she has been learning the language since she was a little girl, and credited her community’s language teacher, Doris Googoo for instilling in her the love of the language.
“She saw a lot of potential in me when I was just a little kid. She’s been teaching me and helping me ever since.,” said Myers. “I’ve been able to read Mi’kmaq and understand some Mi’kmaq and I’m really grateful to her for teaching me that.” While Myers was reciting the prayer in Mi’kmaq, Nikita Sark was providing an English translation.
“We’re so proud of her,” Chief Matilda Ramjattan said of Myers’ achievements. “We want more of that.” She said Lennox Island First Nation wants to promote the Mi’kmaq language.
“We’re going to be stepping up our game in that area.”
In heer remarks to the large National Aboriginal Day gathering, Ramjattan remarked how the Mi’Kmaq culture had been driven underground.
“Don’t take them for granted,” she counseled the youth present about the drum, the songs and dance and regalia, “because when we were young, we didn’t have that.” “Today, I can say we are
strong, and we are going to continue to stand for who we are as aboriginal people,” she told the crowd. “We’re never going to be silent again. We are going to continue to stand for who we are as Mi’kmaq people. We are going to continue to dance, we are going to continue to pray. We are going to continue to drum our drum and sing our songs.
The celebration on Lennox Island, which also included a large helping of food, was organized by the Mi’kmaq Confederacy of P.E.I. which works with the two First Nations bands in P.E.I., Abegweit and Lennox Island.
While noting National Aboriginal Day is an important cultural celebration, MCPEI executive director Donald MacKenzie said it’s also “an opportunity to educate and help those who are not Mi’kmaq to understand the culture and to embrace everything that the indigenous population has to offer.”
Premier Wade MacLauchlan, in his remarks, said the provincial government and First Nations are working together in partnership and reconciliation, and they are seeking to achieve a better future for all. In reflecting on how things have changed, even in the past 30 years, Ramjattan noted today’s youth are able to take the Mi’kmaq singing and dancing and drumming for granted.
“It’s always been there for them,” she said proudly.