“As the ice began to melt, we visited the river.
When our people travel the waterways, the song
of rushing rapids calls us home.
I picked up a small stone for you, so that you always
remember you belong to this place.”
-Tasha Spillett-Sumner, I Sang You Down from the Stars
Cree and Trinidadian author and educator Tasha Spillett-Sumner’s children’s book I Sang You Down From the Stars[1] is the story of a mother and their child as they come into their new relationship with one another. Told from the perspective of the mother, the narrator describes how they prepared for their child by collecting items for the child’s bundle. Later, after giving birth, they share these items with the child and reflect upon their child’s journey from the stars. As Cree Elder Wilfred Buck writes about star teachings from within Cree thought, “we are the Star People…Inside us there is a piece of Creator, and this is how we are related to all things.”[2]
In late November 2019 I gave birth to a child of my own in Toronto, three short months before the global pandemic was announced and our already intentionally small world closed in around us in ways previously imaginable. We had everything we needed between us, though I felt a loss when I did not have the opportunity to introduce my newborn to our family in person. I learn a lot about myself and my place in the world from the place I call home in Manitoba, and had anticipated traveling with my baby to teach them about where we come from. I read Spillett-Sumner’s book to my baby and was reminded to reflect upon the things that I can pass to them from where we are so that they can know where they come from.
In our early days together we found ourselves in the city by the Humber River where we developed our relationship and learned about the world around us together. As a mother I reflected upon the water that flows southward towards Lake Ontario and acknowledge both the significance of this place to those whose territory we are on, and our roles are guests. At the same time, I drew comfort from the water that connects us all. I thought about my youth and the days I would sit beside the Assiniboine River in Winnipeg while watching the ice floes crash into each other during the spring melt. While my baby nursed they would hum a song that they seemed to know innately, and it is the song that I sing back to them today through this artwork. This song is set to the sounds of water flowing along the Humber as received by contact microphones that I built.
where they begin I continue is for my child. It is an artwork that reflects upon motherhood, childhood, and the practice of being in relation where water is the through-line that connects my child from their first home in my body to the place where they were born to the place where we come from and where they are going. It is a way of acknowledging this as the beginning of my child’s life, their agency in determining their own path, and what I can give of myself for them to carry, should they wish to do so.
[1] Spillett-Sumner, Tasha. 2021. I Sang You Down from the Stars. With Illustrations by Michaela Goade. Toronto: Owl Kids Books.
[2] Buck, Wilfred. 2018. Tipiskawi Kisik: Night Sky Star Stories. Winnipeg: Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre.