How solstice is helping some Indigenous people reconnect to their land, families and traditions
Many nations take this time of the year to slow down and acknowledge a new season
For the third year in a row, Sarah Sunshine Manning and her family won't be celebrating Christmas.
Instead, they are marking the winter solstice — the shortest day of the year and the official start of winter — which lands on Dec. 21 in the northern hemisphere this year. It's a tradition that goes back centuries.
"We kind of went back and forth in our household because we have kids and our kids grew up seeing the tree and feeling that excitement," said Manning, a Shoshone Paiute writer and director of communications for NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led advocacy organization in South Dakota.
"Then we realized that we didn't miss it and it opened up space for conversation."
Those conversations focused on decolonizing the holidays and, instead, incorporating traditional teachings and celebrations.
"I think much like many other Native people in our experiences with decolonization, it's an unlearning that is gradual," Manning said.
Many Indigenous nations take this time of the year to slow down and acknowledge a new season. The day is typically marked with ceremonies and community gatherings.
When Manning and her family first decided not to celebrate Christmas, they took a family trip instead, opting to spend time together and foregoing presents.
They also regularly attend sweat lodge ceremonies throughout the year. Recently, they completed their own traditional Hidatsa earth lodge and put a sweat lodge inside, and they hope to continue to sweat during the cold months.
Enjoying foods harvested throughout the year is also an important part of their solstice celebrations.
"Last year was like a soup made of wild turnips, Hidatsa corn and buffalo," Manning said.
Rethinking Christmas
Christmas was a part of Manning's life growing up, in part because it's what her parents and grandparents celebrated.
For those that attended government- or church-run boarding schools in the U.S., similar to Canada's residential schools, the Christmas break offered a period where Indigenous people were reconnected with their families, Manning said.
That time was associated with love and gift giving, she says, and those practices aligned with traditional values and celebrations, like potlatches (feasts).
Manning grew up decorating a Christmas tree with her family and writing letters to Santa Claus, but as she grew older, "I began to really start to intentionally deconstruct what I understood to be this very colonial experience that I had and sought out something different," she said.
Traditions celebrated at this time of year vary from one nation to another, she said. While her son, who is Diné, marks the season with celebrations and stories that are exclusive to winter, Manning's community doesn't have traditions tied to the winter solstice.
"We might not even know what our original teachings were," she added.
"I'm on this journey to learn more and I continue to learn more, I think because of the fact that we did make that departure from Christmas in our home."
'Beginning of a new cycle'
For Joely BigEagle-Kequahtooway, who also grew up celebrating Christmas, winter solstice is a time to bring her community together.
The Nakota Cree artist and designer from White Bear First Nation has hosted woman-led solstice ceremonies in Regina since 2018.
In past years, 13 teepees were set up in a circle in front of the Saskatchewan Legislature. There, 13 matriarchs come together to pray for healing and share teachings.
"It's the beginning of a new cycle, you could say it's the beginning of a new year for us," she said.
"And with everything that's happened in our community, and truth and reconciliation, there's been a lot of people who don't want to celebrate Christmas as a Christian holiday."
This year, after a bitterly cold solstice in 2022, the event will move inside to the mâmawêyatitân centre in Regina where the matriarchs will hold a pipe ceremony, followed by a feast and talking circle.
"We'd like to get a lodge teepee and go back to that space [in front of the Legislature] … and then make it nice and warm and not just have solstice ceremonies, but maybe have other ceremonies there leading up to it and afterwards," she said.
The Regina ceremony is woman-centred as a way of addressing concerns about patriarchal events. BigEagle-Kequahtooway says people of all genders, Indigenous or non-Indigenous, are invited to attend, but how they participate may be different.
"We want to have solstice where the men are included, you know," she said. "The men can come and be helpers. They can come and, you know, look after the children…. They could come serve the food. They could come and help set up, take down."
The artist says she hopes celebrating solstice can help communities deal with the challenges they face.
"No matter what's happening, we still need to gather," she said.
"We still need to pray because our young people are still suffering [at] the hands of suicide, addiction — and now it's not just our young people, it's some of our middle-aged people."
Shifting focus to connect with land, family
In 2019, Manning published a blog post on NDN Collective's website offering 14 ways to decolonize the holidays and celebrate winter solstice, one of the most popular pieces on the organization's website.
Among the recommendations are a call to reflect on the year that passed, making time for family, going to a ceremony and paying attention to the movement of the sun.
"There's more meaning when you talk about the ways that you can use these moments to regenerate your spirit, to reconnect with the land, to connect more deeply with your family and traditions," Manning said.
"That's going to feel more meaningful to anybody than, I think, feeling the pressure to buy, feeling the pressure to celebrate something that always kind of left us feeling either stressed or inadequate."
Shifting her and her family's attention from Christmas to solstice has given Manning the courage to decolonize other holidays as well.
"It has encouraged us to just be very conscientious and to redirect ourselves towards our original teachings," she said.
"And that's been really, really a blessing for our family."
Produced by Laura Beaulne Sterling and Rhiannon Johnson