Traditional Dance Offers Hope to Indigenous Communities
Women use cultural traditions to combat the Coronavirus
On March 25, Nicole Sch stepped out into the cool forest air of Anahim Lake, a predominantly Ulkatcho First Nation community in British Columbia, and began to dance. As she zigzagged across a meadow near her home, small “jingles” on her handmade brown and gold dress rustled in tune to her movements. Across North America, dozens of Native women followed suit, posting videos of themselves and their children performing the jingle dress dance, a traditional Ojibwe healing dance, from Arizona suburbs to the snowy woods of Michigan.
As the Covid-19 pandemic has swept across the United States and Canada, indigenous women have turned to traditional healing practices to strengthen and support their cultural communities while practicing social distancing. Brenda Child, a professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota and a member of the Ojibwe tribe, has traced the history of the jingle dress dance to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. It was said that a little girl was near death, and her father had a dream about a dance and dress that would heal her. He made her the dress and taught her the dance, and as she performed it she became better.
