It’s not unusual for Claire Tuckanow to listen to a stitching machine whirring within the background whereas she works inside Regina’s mâmawêyatitân centre.
The Métis-Cree girl from Okanese First Nation says it’s often one of many three dozen younger individuals she’s been working with to make their very own ribbon skirts.
“They’re like, ‘Can we simply come and make a ribbon skirt?’” mentioned Tuckanow.
“It’s stunning to see that.”
Tuckanow is a co-ordinator with the Regina non-profit Rising Younger Movers, which appears to be like to mentor youth dwelling on the margins.
It was not too long ago authorized for a grant to assist set the wheels in movement for a ribbon skirt regalia library locally centre.
Younger girls sporting ribbon skirts arrive for Nationwide Day for Fact and Reconciliation ceremonies in Calgary on Sept. 30, 2022.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
As soon as it’s up and operating, Tuckanow mentioned, youth will be capable of borrow ribbon skirts and ribbon shirts for ceremonies or different occasions.
The thought began when Tuckanow started reflecting on her tradition and the way she was surrounded by ceremonial practices rising up. She wore a ribbon skirt to ceremonies, symbolizing the ability of womanhood.
“If you placed on a skirt, you’re reclaiming that,” she mentioned.
“I’ve a skirt that I solely put on after I’m going to funerals or wakes, I’ve skirts which can be pink and yellow and vibrant, and I’ll put on them out, even when I’m going grocery procuring, as a result of it feels stunning to placed on a ribbon skirt.”
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Saturday marks Nationwide Ribbon Skirt Day, established in 2023 after a 10-year-old lady was shamed for sporting a ribbon skirt to a proper day in school in southern Saskatchewan.
Tuckanow mentioned she seen the ribbon skirt custom was lacking amongst city Indigenous youth on the Regina centre.
“Due to historical past, quite a lot of Indigenous people are displaced from their communities exterior of city centres. And also you lose these actually essential cultural and vital protocol items, equivalent to sporting ribbon skirts,” she mentioned.
The clothes are additionally laborious to come back by and will be costly. So Tuckanow determined to take issues into her personal palms: the centre would make ribbon skirts out there to younger individuals and two-spirit people.
Earlier than lengthy, she had sourced some ribbon skirt kits from Edmonton and borrowed stitching machines from the centre’s precise library. She additionally requested an Indigenous advocate to show youth how you can make them.
There was quite a lot of trial and error, mentioned Tuckanow, however these within the group of 20 helped one another out.
Throughout that firstclass, she mentioned, one second hit near house.
“I used to be simply sitting there simply watching them. And I used to be feeling emotional, as a result of that is what our grandmothers wished for us,” she mentioned.
“The following week, we had our annual fall feast, and I used to be blown away by all of those ladies coming in, sitting down with their skirts. It was simply such a phenomenal feeling.”
The aim now could be for the group to work with elders and data keepers within the evenings to make extra skirts that may be added to the library.
A gaggle of Indigenous youth pose sporting the ribbon skirts they made with Rising Youth Movers on the mâmawêyatitân centre in Regina on this undated handout picture.
Courtesy: Claire Tuckanow
For now, it’s about build up inventory and discovering an area to retailer all of the skirts.
Tuckanow mentioned she hopes to incorporate ribbon shirts for boys, too.
Anybody, together with non-Indigenous individuals, can put on ribbon skirts, she added — so long as their intentions are good.
“I actually like this concept that as Indigenous individuals, we’re not going to be contributing to that intergenerational trauma,” Tuckanow mentioned.
“It’s creating this intergenerational love by means of educating, by means of being there and having accessible cultural put on.”
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