Weetamoo The Sweating Ceremony By: Halle Auvigne

Sweating ceremony  This began Weetamoo and Cedar’s learning time  Built a fire with thirteen stones, one stone for every moon  Stones that when hot don’t explode  Went into the pesuponk (sweat lodge)  Sweat lodge is like a small wetu, but no smoke hole  Pit dug to hold all the hot rocks

Inside Sweating Ceremony  Red Hawk blessed Weetamoo and Cedar  Weetamoo, Weetamoo’s mother, and Cedar took off all their clothes  Auntie White Frost was inside praying already  All in a circle around the pit of hot rocks  Auntie dipped the cedar bough in a pot of water  She put the water over the hot stones  The rocks sizzled and a blast of steam struck them

During Sweating Ceremony  Since Cedar and Weetamoo were being cleansed they had to sit in the hottest place (back of the lodge)  Weetamoo can rarely stand all the heat but this time she did  Again Auntie put water on the hot rocks  Fresh steam rose from the hot rocks  Weetamoo started to feel the damp heat  Everything that was unclean in them was being pulled out out  Weetamoo would breathe in deeply to clean herself

Praying during the Ceremony  There were four rounds of prayers  Starting in the south, then west, then north, then east, ending in the sunrise direction  Gave thanks to the different spirits of the different directions  Elders prayed for Weetamoo and Cedar  Finally they were told to ask something for themselves  Cedar wanted Nou’gou’mis to live a long time  Weetamoo wants her baby sister, Snowbird to be healed and wants to be granted patience

After the Ceremony  Crawled out of the lodge one by one  Washed their hot bodies with snow  Put their clothes on  Weetamoo felt relaxed, and wide awake

Evening after the Ceremony  Weetamoo is in her own wetu on the hill  Sitting and thinking by herself  She has had nothing to eat since her fest before the sweat  She was given corn soup and roasted ground nuts  Had a little pouch of nokake (parched and powered corn) ‪

Day after the Ceremony  There only job is to keep the small fire lit  Also be alert to whatever may come  Weetamoo sees the deer that her and Cedar killed  The deer wanted her to follow  Her following the deer went on for hours  The deer had lead her to their seaside village  The deer wanted Weetamoo to go in front of her

The Seaside Village  Weetamoo was brought to the tideline and then figured out why she was there  She saw a lady with long black hair covering her eyes  The lady had a child in her arms  The lady had square eyes and it was Squant  Squant was holding Weetamoo’s sister Snowbird  Snowbird was happy, laughing, and patting Squant’s face  Squant and Snowbird left and Weetamoo didn’t follow

After the Seaside Village  Weetamoo doesn’t know if Squant will heal Snowbird  This is the 2 nd and last night of her fast  She feels weak and lightheaded  The deer came back again

The 2 nd time the deer came  Longer walk than last walk  Saw a fire and heard screams but didn’t stop  It became a spring morning  It was the time of catching fish  Weetamoo saw her grown up self  Along with her sister and Metacom  Weetamoo had a baby on her back  Metacom picked up the bloodroot and smeared it on his forehead, along with Weetamoo and the baby  But not for W ‪ eeetamoo’s sister

After the 2 nd night  Red Hawk came to pray with Weetamoo and take her back to her parents  She will finish her thinking later  Red Hawk asked her questions about her dreams/ visions  The Powwaw asked a lot of questions  The most important thing the Powwaw said was that Weetamoo kept her fire alight after the two days

Late that night  Weetamoo was back with her family  Elders held another sweat that night  They marked Weetamoo and Cedar’s return from their fasting  Weetamoo thought Cedar’s face looked different  Weetamoo wonders what Cedar saw in her dream/ vision