Community Beading for All

Two birch trees grow side by side outside Tollkeeper’s Cottage Museum on the corner of Gete-Onigaming--the portage route now known as Davenport Road--and Bathurst Street, planted by Mississaugas of the Credit and Community History Project (CHP) leadership when the Museum first opened. Indigenous and Settler people coming together in the spirit of Right Relations was felt again Saturday, February 28th, as little hands and big got busy around Reva-Marie Peters-Ackroyd’s Tea, Bannock, and Beading Table.

Twenty people tested their pattern-making skills and patience in choosing from the thousands of beads Reva brought to inspire the makers. Some made bracelets and necklaces, others keychains. As is her manner, Reva quietly helped all those who asked with tools, clasps, tying off (without sending their beads tumbling to the floor), all the while encouraging the sampling of her blueberry bannock and cedar and soapberry medicinal teas.

One participant came to work on the Red Dress the IPSG will hang in the Noojimo’iwewin Gitigaan Entranceway Garden on May 5th, in honour of Reva’s missing cousin, Belinda Williams. They carefully selected wooden beads to shape into a heart, adding smaller beads to the interior. At a table shared with many children, parents, and grandparents, this acknowledgement of the continuing Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2 Spirit Peoples crisis was deeply moving.

“We are so pleased by every opportunity to partner with the Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Group,” says longtime CHP volunteer, Ronnie Burbank. “It was a beautiful, creative event for all ages, all genders and all abilities.” “I think this workshop has inspired interest in the symbolic, cultural and political aspects of beading,” adds CHP President Jeannette Mazzocato, already thinking ahead to additional programming.

Reva’s last Soup, Bannock, and Beading Table for the season is Sunday, March 29, from noon until 3 in the St. Matt’s Community Hall.