Indigenous wampum belt tells a unique tale to connect youth across the province

People all across the province have been given the opportunity to help craft a traditional wampum belt.

The wampum beltis a traditionalIndigenous craft and story telling device. Crafters use thousands of white and purple beads to create imageswhich are symbolic orrepresent important treaties or historic moments.

The project began at the Grenfell campus in Corner Brook, withKelly Anne Butler, theAboriginal Affairs officer,andthe Indigenous student caucus. The Grenfellgroup designated which symbols would be used to represent each indigenous group in the province, and then sent out an open call to the public to send in designs.

"We had such a good response, we have extra designs that aren'tgoing to fit on the main belt, so we already have plans to make a second belt everyonethat submits a design will have their design woven," said Butler.

Weaving of the belt began at the Grenfell campus in January, and since then Butler has brought the belt to St. John's, Boyd's Cove, Gander, Port au Choix, Bay. St. George, Sheshatshiu, and North West Riverwhere she introduces the belt to new audiences and collects more designs.

She estimates that between 60 and 70 people have worked on the belt thus far.

We are all connected

The theme of the belt is that we are all connected.

"It's a common wampum theme we're all connected in some way," said Butler."It's really easy for use to focus on differences that we have, but there are a lot of things we have in common as well."

Butler describes belt crafting as both a community building experience and a spiritual one aswell. She also says that is easy to learn.

"Somepeople justsit right down, pick up the needle, and go to town. And others are kind of timid. They're afraid they're going to break it or something's going to go wrong. Once they start working on it, they realize that it's not that hard."

"It wasdefinitely a great opportunity to learn this traditional craft I was suprisedwith how simple it was," said Sofia Champion, a visitor from Toronto whohad never seen a wampum belt before that day.

ShikuanNunawas familiar with wampum belts, but had never worked on one before.

"I thought it was pretty unique," said Nuna.

A traditional belt is six feet long, and composed of between 10 and 12 thousand tiny beads.The craft predates European arrival, but was most prevalent during this time.

"This is when newcomers showed up and there had to be agreements made to how people where going to coexist and maintain relationships on the land," explained Butler."Unfortunately, a lotof them were not honoured."