Eagle Feather Cleansing Live Demonstration

i said greetings to all my relatives welcome to this demonstration today i want to first acknowledge the zebuing center cultural and anishinaabe lifeways the saginaw indian tribe also the tribal council the eagle feather cleansing demonstration today has been conducted since 1998 over 22 years this uh event has taken place the honoring the feast and also the cleansing it was it's been a three-day event where we begin out by uh by cleansing our feathers then we honor them and then we feast them but because of the circumstances of 20 and 20 where we're not able to provide that for you today so we're going to do a virtual cleansing of the feathers the use of the feathers by the anishinaabe people comes in many different forms the feathers were given to the anishinabe people for many different reasons they can pray with them they can honor their family members they could do many many different things to uh for the eagle feathers and they were given to the anishinaabe people for many different purposes from the creator you could get them in many different ways they could be passed down by generation to generation they also could be give given in a special event ceremony any type of event like that also they could uh be found as you're traveling uh throughout the world eagle feathers lose their feathers during a certain time of the year and as we wander around this uh this turtle island sometimes we come upon our eagle feather and we place our tobacco down and then we can clean that feather as a gift from the creator feathers work for us in many different ways they help us uh pray to our creator they help us in our daily lives they give us strength and power they help help us physically mentally and spiritually today i'm going to demonstrate how to cleanse our eagle feather the zebu center has provided the general public all you have to do is call here to the z-boring center 775-4750 and the z-boot and this eagle feather kit could be obtained and it has many different uh things in it it has a the flyer which explains on the back of it the significance of the eagle feather the cleaning and cleansing and caring for the eagle feather also within the kit you have a couple of q-tips and also uh cotton swabs that are very useful and uh we also have our cedar oil it's about an ounce a little maybe just a little bit of more than an ounce of cedar oil also we have uh we have our paintbrush that we use when we cleanse our our feathers so all of these uh materials are once again they're inside of this bag that could be uh obtained from the zebraing center at curbside service just call 775-4750 and you can get one of these uh one of these kits for free so what i'd like to demonstrate today is that all of this material here that has been laid out prior to uh prior to this demonstration is you're going to need yourself a piece of cardboard a table put it on cardboard try not to use any type of paper like a newspaper or uh or a paper uh flyer that's already had been printed on because uh in some cases maybe the the ink will come off and go on to the feather and we don't want that to happen so uh also we have our our cedar oil on some cedar oil also you have you need to have a glass bowl glass wool no plastic the cedar is very uh active to the to the plastic so try not to use a plastic ball glass is preferred with our with our brush i just wanted to show you uh last week before before the uh presentation began and now and i was working with the cedar oil i got these uh turkey feathers here and then i wanted to test the properties of the of the cedar oil so i cleansed these uh these turkey feathers with the oil and then i let them dry overnight and as you see the turkey feather as i'm pulling on it the feathers aren't stuck together they're very pliable oh and you really can smell the aroma of the cedars the plume part of the feather is very workable you just pull it out and it's back to plume very very good so that the the cedar oil will not damage the feather actually it cleanses it this one has a has a more of a prominent plume on it so you can see that the plume has really really come back into original shape the smell on the feather is really good and a feather will be protected by by the cedar oil so first of all what we want to do after we get our feathers we're going to take the cedar oil and here we want to pour a bit of it into the glass bowl just go right ahead and pour the cedar oil in the glass bowl take your take your brush and kind of soak it around into that cedar oil and then just just let it lay in there for a second also uh within within the kit you have the you have this cotton swabs you can also use and also the the q-tips the q-tips you can use also for cleansing too then you would just dip each one of these into the into the cedar oil and then proceed to clean your feathers so today i brought some of my personal feathers with me that i'm going to actually cleanse here for you today i have them over here in this case a protective case for the for the feathers i have this particular feather this uh bald legal feather it's a tail feather that comes from the bald eagle i have it here i haven't decided what what i was going to use it for so it was gifted to me and so i just been storing it and putting it away and then one day i'll decide what to do with the feather but as we look at the eagle feather it has two sides to it it has a front side it has a back side it has a shaft and then the feather the feathers on the side and then this one has a little bit of plumage on it so what we're going to do is we're going to take our feather and we're going to lay it flat down on our cardboard or a piece of paper on the table we're going to take either our brush or our q-tip or a cotton ball excuse me or a cotton ball and uh we're gonna start cleaning the feather how i like to begin with the feather and you can do this any way you want but how i like to do it is uh the shaft here of the feather which goes all the way from the this is considered the bottom of the feather where it's really thick and it goes up and then it starts to get thin up the top and then on both sides i like to uh i like to lay the feather down and then i like to begin there i would i can usually take the brush and kind of press it down unless the excess off the brush go back into the go back into the jar then i begin at the bottom and i just gently hold it down and i start to brush i to start to stroke the oil the cedar oil along the shaft of the eagle feather and as you continue up you can see the the feather or the shaft starting to uh starting to soak the oil into uh into the feather very good the oil protects the eagle feather from the mites that grow and then they want to uh you want to harm how they want you to destroy the feather particularly eat the feather so this the oil will keep the bugs away from your uh away from your personal feathers also as the feather once it leaves the eagle lands on the ground or however wherever it uh it goes once it leaves the eagle the natural oils from the eagle that help protect the feather are no longer able to so we as anishinaabe people have to replenish this oil into our feathers so once a year that's why this program was created the honoring and cleansing and the the feasting of the eagle feathers so we can take care of our feathers and restore them back and keep them keep them really really good and so they can help us in our daily lives so the next thing i would do i would pick either side of the shaft on my left side or my right side and i would start at the bottom with the plumage and then i would start to brush a outward stroke on the feather making sure all of the feather is completely saturated with the oil if you need some oil go back and dip make sure you're you're getting the excess off and then continue up the feather i chose the right side of the feather continue up the right side of the feather until you're at the top then you'll notice the feather is really uh really saturated with the with the oil and uh like mr willie johnson told me the feather is going to tell you how much oil it needs you know you don't have to dip it and pour the oil all over the feather the feather is actually going to tell you how much oil that it needs then after you completed that side you start on the left side also getting the plumage soaked in the feather working from the shaft to the outer part of the feather making sure that the feather is completely covered with the oil take your time continue up to the top of the feather make sure you're brushing on in outwards motion you can rather saturate it as you complete the front part of the feather it'll even kind of like turn into a different color you can see the excess on the cardboard from the feather then once again you can turn the feather over on the opposite side now this time since the cut since the feather is already saturated you won't need as much oil for the reverse side but you would do the same procedure you would hold it and you would start at the bottom of the feather and get the shaft and then get the plumage on the other side continue up on the shaft to the tip of the feather now we go back in and get some more oil and remember the oil is already saturated on the front side so you wouldn't need a whole lot of oil on the reverse side and then you would continue up with light brush strokes really don't try to force down on your uh on your brush just lightly stroke it so that so the feather is uh completely covered on that side now if you have a feather that's coming apart there in the front you can gently take your hand and you can pull the feather up and as it dries it'll continue to dry and it'll it'll actually come back together as a feather and then that that little part all right we're going to continue on the other side so we're going to start once again at the bottom of the feather we're going to work up the shaft again once again work up the shaft once again and then lightly go over the back of the feather with the oil continuing up on to the top of the feather and now the fender feather is completely cleansed it's really saturated in the oil although oil as you can see by the demonstration the oil is not dripping off it's staying within the feather and it's giving the feather back the life that it needs to carry on it's uh its job for the anishinaabe people so that's that's one of my feathers that i have another one of my feathers that i'm gonna cleanse for you today this one this particular feather was gifted to me by my relatives this particular feather is a golden eagle feather and uh it has a number of different other feathers on it it has these yellow plumes and it has this white plumes on here and once an anishinabe person gets one of these feathers and cares for it responsibility to take care of it so this is when you when you add different different colored plumes white yellow red you'll see all different kind of pink orange whatever color uh whatever color you like you put on your feather this is called dressing up the feather dressing up the feather just like you would dress up another human being another anishinabe you want them to look good their presentation to look good to the world so you would dress up this feather with however way you want it so i'm going to continue on and i'm going to cleanse this particular feather this particular feather comes from the golden golden eagle and golden eagle and this is one of the the tail feathers for the golden ego so what i'm going to do is once again it has a front side and it has a reverse side i'm going to place it down so the front side is showing and this time instead of using instead of using the brush i'm going to use the q-tip and then the q-tip we do in the same manner we soak we soak the q-tip in the oil and then we're going to begin down at the bottom of the shaft sometimes if you have a covering on your uh on your eagle feather you're not able to get into the shaft but if if you wanted to if you wanted to take that covering off the shaft and then recover it and replenish it you know you can take that off and then then it would expose the shaft and then you can clean it also but if you didn't want to take the covering off maybe you had some bead work on here or some quill work so it would be impractical or you know for you to take off that particular a work off of the off of the feather so you would leave that on and then you would just continue above above that uh the quill work or the or the beadwork with the with the uh with the oil so what i would do is i would work first on the on the on the plumage whatever color plumage you have i would i would do that first get enough oil on there and then you would see the plumage and it starts to uh it starts to uh starts to go in and it doesn't look like plumage anymore it doesn't look like uh like here we have on the on the turkey feather how the plumage on the turkey feather is really really nice it's really grown out it'll kind of just go down and kind of be like that you know but then once it dries you can either take a a hair dryer and then on on gentle cycle hold it kind of far away don't hold the hair dryer right up to the to the other kind of right here so that the hair dryer the air from the hair dryer is blowing on the feather and then you can gently pull out the plumage and then it'll come back it'll come back to its original shape the same thing on these other these little yellow ones i already put the oil on this little yellow one so they're pretty soaked here so they're they're not going to come out and your your plumage will actually look like this because it has so much oil on it but as you leave it dry overnight and then you come back the next day and then you pull the plumage it'll all come back it'll all come back to its original shape be nice and fluffy and look very beautiful so once i get the plumage like that and saturated with oil i kind of just move it gently to the side gently to the side where i could see the shaft and once you can see the shaft that's the area where you want to work on next so once again you grab your you grab your uh q-tip soak it in the oil rub it on the shaft starting at the bottom continuing all the way up to the top of the feather once we get the top of the feather you notice that i have some white plumage at the top of the feather here so what i'm going to do is i'm going to take my uh take my q-tip and i'm going to saturate that whole plumage with the oil giving it a nice wet look when you when you actually get putting the oil on the feather you'll notice that the oil that the oil gives uh give the feather a sheen and also it makes it kind of look really wet you know that's really good that's really good for the feather you know the feather is a it's kind of like a bounty towel paper towel when you put that oil on there you know if it's missing oil you know you'll it'll just it'll just soak it right i'll be able to just like like a sponge so then once again i filled my uh filled my q-tip up with the oil i'm going to start at the bottom of the feather continue continuing my way up to the feather continue my way up on the feather i need some more soak it in there gently stroking it gently stroking it on the you'll have to have some tissues with you when you're doing this procedure the the cedar oil the the the smell of the aroma is so strong that like just like now it'll probably make your uh make your nose run a little bit keep your uh keep your prerel handy wipe your hands if you have to uh if you have to cleanse your your your face and then and then continue on continue on with your uh with your feather go back to the place where you stop and you can tell when you stop the the once you put the feather the oil on the feather this part of the feather in this part of the feather this is it has more of a sheen to it and this is kind of like a dollar dollar looking uh color so then you just continue up the uh using the q-tip takes a little bit longer you're not covering as much area as you are with the with the brush but either either one is appropriate to use to to cleanse your feather and once you get all the way to the top you'll notice that your feather oh man it's really it's really got a sheen to it now the feather is really soaking up a lot of the oil given giving it the cedar oil giving it the strength cedar was a is a medicine that was given it to us by the creator to help us in our daily lives to help us with our spirituality physically mentally and spiritually and to uh to give this to to the eagle feather also gives the eagle feather on the strength where it can do its purpose for us whatever purpose we use our our feathers for you know the creator gave us our feathers and now the eagle he's the one that flies the highest sees the farthest when we take our sama out and we place it down in the morning and we ask the creator to help us out on this day to make us a strong that we face every challenge during the day that we we as anishinaabe people can face all of them challenges and go through our day when we lay our salmon down and we ask the creator for all of these things he comes around the eagle comes around and he takes some prayers and he takes them up to the creator and the creator looks down upon us and gives us the things we need during our daily lives during our daily survival here on mother earth so what i'm going to do now since i did the one side of the feather i'm going to do the other side of the feather but since i in the beginning i dropped it i dropped this in the and then the cedar oil and as you can look at the table it's pretty saturated with the oil so what i'm going to do is i want to take a feather the plumes and kind of move them to the side and take my uh take my cotton swab and then kind of just go up again going from the shaft outward pressing down very gently gently some of our feathers that we have are very precious to us so they're just like our children you know our fellows are just like our children and we want to take care of these revenues just like we would our children we want to teach them very treat them very gently very kindly and take care of them with everything that everything we have so we take this feather we can just put a little bit more on here and see that the feather wants a little bit more oil right here so that's the that's the front side of the the eagle feather just place the cotton swab down and once again you'll see that the plumage has kind of kind of shrunk in but uh don't worry about that it didn't ruin it it didn't it didn't damage it once once the feather starts again i guarantee you that once you you can even use your mouth and blow on it with your mouth and then kind of work to work the plumage out and it'll come back out and it'll just it'll look just like this once the once the oil is dried so then you're going to take your feather once again place it on the reverse side i'll start with my brush demonstrate with the brush here we're going to start with the plumage first now with the brush it has a lot more uh cedar oil saturated in it already so the plumage is going to probably shrink down really really really really fast with the brush and and it's not going to look like it's a beautiful plume before so that's how that's how the plume is going to look when she's saturated with oil getting it giving it more life giving it more health giving it more strength that's what the cedar oil does to these feathers it helps it and it will help us and then so once i get the plumage saturated once again very gently i'm going to move the plumage to the side of the feather so i can expose the shaft and you're not hurting uh you're not hurting the plumage if it's natural or if it's artificial plumage that you have added to the feather it's not going to hurt the feather just move it to gently move it to the side don't try to rip it or tear it over just something gently move it off this side with your with your fingers then what we're going to do is uh since our oil has been soaking in in the bowl once again make sure you use a glass some type of a glass bowl no plastic no no rubberize or no tupperware don't use don't use that the cedar oil acts very very strongly with that uh that plastic or that rubberized material so it uh what you want is this glass this glass bowl here so then you take your brush and then what you do is start at the bottom of the shaft once again really gently you don't have to press down really hard once you start pressing on it the oil just automatically it leaves the brush and it will come and it'll come on the shaft once again i'm going to take the um the brush the top part of the the feather where the plumage in is you're going to see it once again the plumage on the on the top of the top of the feather is not going to look like it like it did before but i guarantee you once you uh you blow dry it i would say about i would say about this length body length body link dart you know turn it on turn your blow dryer on low with the aero blow you know you can even use your own personal breath kind of just blowing on it while you're pulling on it the next day and the plume will come actually come back come back to life and while it's being protected and it's soaking up the oil okay once i got done with the reverse side of the golden eagle i'm going to start on the bottom gently once again you don't need that much on the reserve first side because the front side of the the front side of the feather is really soaking up a lot of the and then you can see really see the sheen on that side of the side of the feather and that's that's what you're looking for if you see some dull dull spots kind of like a dried out area on your feather that's that's kind of the area that you work up want to work on a little bit more so what we're going to do is take our take our brush dip it just the tip of it into the oil try to press out most of the oil back into the bowl and then we're going to continue on the other side now i don't know if you can see this or through the demonstration but the bottom of this but the bottom of this feather excuse me one more time very powerful the aroma is very powerful please once you touch your nose or do anything like that the mouth in any any area please use a please use some pres purel or something to to cleanse your hands with keep them away from your face i'm in here without a mask because uh the room is closed off there's nobody else in here but me and i'll sell you virtually but so otherwise if there was other people in here i would have my mask on doing them the demonstration so once again as i was saying before as if you could right where my index finger is you can see the feather right in here has a different sheen than the other parts of the feather that have already been covered with the oil it's kind of like it looks like kind of like a dry dried out really dry area and the other ones it doesn't have much sheen to it so you know that area right in there that part of the feather needs more oil so what i would do is i would take my my brush either you can use your brush or you can use your uh q-tip i use the q-tip for this and then just in the area where it's really really dull just take that oil spread it all over the feather oh yeah that looks beautiful now now it's really got a it's really got a sheen to it it looks looks like it wants to be healthier more healthier than it was then in the other areas where you left off you know remember that on the reverse side don't use as much oil don't use as much oil and then just once again from the bottom oh yeah the feather is just like a like a bounty towel it's just soaking up it's just soaking up all the oil saying give me that medicine yeah give me that medicine so we're going to give the feather all the medicine that it wants so it can be healthy and help us in our daily lives so uh this is uh the golden eagle feather that i've done i've also done the bald eagle tail feather golden eagle tail feather and then our next step is in a safe area once we put the oil down on on our feathers is we want to place it in a safe and a dry area and what we do is we'll lay our feather on our on our on our cardboard or paper and then we'll leave uh we'll leave the feathers over there overnight so they could uh so they could dry and uh i used a lot of my oil on there so i'm gonna do other feathers so i'm going to take this cedar oil and we're going to replenish our bowl with just just about that much so we almost used about half half of our oil here my feathers and for this demonstration i really used a lot of we really used a lot of oil to try to demonstrate but the feathers they really needed they really needed the they really needed the oil this is my uh eagle feather fan that i use um mainly for dancing and uh once in a while i use it in the ceremonies but it helps me and helps me with my connection to my creator my belief in my my my higher power so uh so i want to take care of this and i want to treat just this eagle feather fan this is a tail tail feather and it comes off of a comes off of the bald eagle before it uh before it turns white this is the tail actually after the the eagle gets older and older it'll actually turn this color and then all of the feathers will be white on it so this is that this is a younger eagle that was gift gifted to me by my relatives so what i want to do uh with this eagle feather is i'll place it down on the on the table eagle fan and i'll grab since i have a lot of feathers i'm just going to use my brush on this one and then i'm going to get the oil down here and then we're going to start over here i'll start on this end and then once again what we're going to do is we're going to start way down here on the shaft put the oil on the shaft continue up continue up the shaft with the oil all right now if you have the feathers and see they're attached to the fan it's okay to gently move move your feathers over let me work on this side hold them over get your oil on there and then start going up to the top brushing the oil from out to in once again on the sides you get the plumage keep on working the oil all the way up to the feather and as you can see the feather compared to these other ones it really has a nice sheen to it and actually you can take the parts that been pushed together and you can try to try to put them back together like that and actually as the oil dries they will go back in back into into shape so then i want to take the next feather lift it up gently do the shaft all the way up we're going to do the side of the feather doing it kind of quickly since we already demonstrated a little bit slower before how to do it but you can go a little quickly since i have a lot of feathers here and what you can do is press it apart take your feather in between oh yeah the eagle feather is just drinking up drinking up this oil and you just continue down to the next feather up the shaft the shaft along the feather oh man i just touched it and the eagle feather just soaked it soaked it right up yeah continued on this side see i pulled this one out a little bit so then i can just place it behind there just lift this up just gently with your hand place that behind there this one here i can gently move it on the front once again i'm going up the shaft the feather all the way from the bottom thus the shaft part of the feather that's where the mites and the bugs they attack the feathers now you might see some feathers in there as you go up they're missing a piece of feather that's because the mites and bugs have got to them already um before you are able to protect them and uh this will kill them this will this will stop them this will get the bugs off your feather and preserve them preserve them longer so then i push that back and i'm here from here to the center feather of the of the fan once again gently all the way up the shaft get into more oil oh feather is really just soaking that right up it's not even dripping on the table only it's dripping on the tables when i press it down on the table very good then the other side make sure you get the plumage shaft from the shaft outward the brush is getting in there and what you're trying to do is uh get the get the oil on top of the feather don't take your brush and try to uh try to spread the feather apart and get it in in between the the oil will naturally just soak into the into the feather where you don't have to where you don't have to do that now my other feather i'm moving this other one over very gently doing the shaft all the way up the side of the feather the eagle family is really just soaked in that hole i believe uh i believe uh if you uh if you have a lot of eagle feathers and you use more than uh more than we gave you in your little uh your little bottle here and you need some more i'm pretty sure you can call the zebuing center 775-47 and we might be able to replenish some of your your cedar oil for you and once again we're going to go up oh man then you can hear the feather it's almost talking to you if you hear that you can hear that noise here the feather is almost it's just like soaking that oil right up we're going to continue down to the next all the way up on the shaft move our feather over gently excuse me continue back on our feather do the outside continue that out second to the last rather move it out so we can see it alright so you don't need that you don't need that much oil on it as you're going along you'll see that it's got that good sheen on it if it still has that that uh that dark look to it then you can just add some more glow to it take that all the way up the shaft you want the feather the feather on there the brush is really saturated with the look with the oil so when i go back and dip it in there i don't have to dip it very much because the brush itself is holding a lot of the a lot of the oil so we'll put these back in order here put these back in order that's the front side of the of the fan and you can see all of the feathers they have that nice really good looking sheen to it giving the feathers back the strength that it loses once it leaves the eagle you know it starts to dry out and it's not getting the natural oils from the eagle to help preserve itself so we as an anishinabe people that's uh we've been gifted or we've been presented with these feathers now that we're gifted and it's our responsibility to as anishinaabe people to take care of these feathers just like we would our our children another person so uh that's why one of the reasons why we take care of this and take care of these feathers so then i would continue on with the back of the feathers and then once again once i'm uh once i'm completely done with the whole complete fan in a nice dry area you would lay the you would lay the fan out and then let it dry overnight once again you can use a lot of different materials to help you the cotton swab here you can take oil from the from the carpets while it really soaks up a lot of the oil to the top to the top and soak the oil back down in there continue with your feather you don't need much on the on the reverse side because you you've already done the front side so that one i've done right here and you can really see the sheen on that on that feather right there from the oil giving it a lot of life giving its life protecting it so it can protect us continue on up all of your feathers the swab i don't even really have to soak back in the oil because it's holding a lot of the oil cotton swab so i'm just moving the feathers and i'm moving the feather from the bottom i'm moving the feather from the bottom moving it left or moving it right from the bottom part if it's attached to something i'm not grabbing it in the center and trying to bend it over because it might bend it might break so i'm trying to be as gently as i can with it not too rough not to roughhouse it kind of like our children you know we cheat them gently take care of them just like that child you know we'll give them a little sponge bath here yeah it a little sponge band it'll soak up the oil oh man this man is really soaking up the oil and once again on the backside of the feather you don't you don't need to have even though the the cot swab holds a lot of oils you don't need to keep on dipping it and going back the cotton squad itself is holding a lot of the oil you know if you uh if you have a lot of time on your hand i'm gently pushing the feathers back into the order that they came from putting them back in shape that's powerful you really can smell that oil so with that we i began by uh last week making sure that our oils had the right property to it and it didn't damage our feathers so even though uh i did use a turkey the turkey feathers are honorable feathers you know but we can get we can replenish turkey feathers our eagle feathers uh are are almost uh valuable and on on we can't get them back in some cases so i tried with the turkey feathers and you can see as turkey feather here the plumage i just did it with my hands and i'm just touching it very gently i'm not trying to pull out any of the plumage i'm just trying to put it back into natural order of the feather and the feather itself see it's not sticking together you know it isn't uh it isn't glued together and you can take it and pull it apart and then once you take your hand and gently uh prune your feather i'm gonna go back it'll go back it'll go back into the natural feather your beautiful feathers very beautiful feathers i made a couple of dance shields and then i put some of these turkey feathers on they're very beautiful feathers put some plumage on them colored them all up so i want to thank you uh see me glitch to each and every one of you here that came here and uh watch me do this uh this demonstration on how to cleanse uh cleanse your eagle feathers uh and hopefully this is uh helpful to you and take care of your yoga fathers they're a gift to us from our creator they help us in our everyday lives spiritually mentally and physically and with those words i want to say once again me rich on behalf of the zebuing center the saginaw chippewa indian tribe tribal council thank you for affording me this opportunity to demonstrate how to cleanse and care for your ego feather big witch you

Channel: Saginaw Chippewa

Views: 1,598

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: hIwr0Mryl-4

Length: 53min 40sec (3220 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 07 2020