THUNDER BAY — It was devastating for her daughter, said Shirley Stevens, when the cradleboard she spent the first seven months of her life in was stolen over 10 years ago.
A cradleboard, or a tikinagan, is traditional Indigenous child-carier.
The loss of the heirloom set Stevens on a mission, bringing together more than 250 cradleboards from across North America for a community exhibit run by the Cradleboard Collective.
“They’re supposed to inspire,” said Stevens.
“This art of making cradles is being lost and it’s hoped that if communities, enough people, see them that they will think about how that used to be in their community and perhaps revive the art of cradleboard making.”
The exhibit was on display at the Outset, on Simpson St, for Mother’s Day Weekend.
As a weekend so important to a lot of people, Stevens said, the exhibit was felt to be an appropriate expression of Mother’s Day that people aren’t normally aware of.
“It needs to be out there. People need to see it. They need to feel it (and) recognize how important it is on a lot of different levels,” said Stevens.
“So the more support, the better. But so far, we’ve encountered really wonderful support from people.”
The extensive collection of historic and modern cradleboards has toured the country, with the volunteer-run collective mostly paying out of pocket to travel. They hope tp find a permanent home for the exhibit.
Stevens said they hope a larger organization, such as a museum, an art gallery or even an industry concerned about Indigenous peoples and including them would come forward and be willing to help them.
Every cradle in the exhibit represents a particular Indigenous group, she explained, and said they tried to ensure that they represented as many as possible.
“There’s a lot of breadth and depths to the cradles that are on exhibit here, including the Inuit with their traditional amauti dress and the big hood behind them where they keep the baby,” said Stevens.
Stevens said that as much as it is a utility item, cradleboards also have a lot of symbolism and represent Indigenous women’s cultural belongings.
“A child leaves a part of themselves in a cradleboard, a part of their spirit, and most of the cradleboards here have been used (and) have had children in them. And so, there’s a lot of important spiritual energy here,” said Stevens.
Stevens' niece Casie Mathewson, also one of the cradleboard keepers in the collective, had her purple tikinagan on display. It was created by Tommie Wigwas, the same man who made her aunt's tikinagan.
"My mom, she passed it down to me, so that I can then pass it to my future child," said Mathewson.
Her stepdad, Wayne Letang, also had a "Every Child Matters" tikinagan at the exhibit, representing the children who were lost and never came home.
Mathewson added that the exhibition was also at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, a couple of years ago.
“I kind of was a part of it from the inception of it, I guess you could say, so I’m just really grateful to be part of something so beautiful and so powerful in the Anishinaabe culture,” said Mathewson.
The exhibition was created by her aunt, she said, to bring children together, teach them about where they come from and how it’s important to know their traditions, starting from childhood, to pass on to future generations.
“Cradleboards are basically an Indigenous tool used to help create and raise healthy children,” said Mathewson.
“And I would really encourage anybody to do their own research on cradle boards and maybe how they can incorporate it in their own lives because they really are a beautiful tool to create healthy families.”
Stevens said they also wanted non-Indigenous people to hear a different narrative about Indigenous women than is presently in the media with child welfare and murdered missing women.
“People can see that the cultures flourished, because they take care of their kids (and) because they kept their kids safe. And I’m really hoping that a lot of people see it,” said Stevens.
Once banned and called evil because they were "not civilized enough," she said, they’re trying to change that narrative too.
“When you walk in this room. There’s a really good energy, a really positive energy, and that’s important... An important part of it is the kind of energy that it’s producing,” said Stevens.
