Each Object Tells a Story
“How did I start making crafts? It was like this.” Mi’kmaq craftswoman Shirley Dedam is a great storyteller. She engages your attention with a question and promises an answer.
“Once, when I was maybe eight years old, my grandmother dressed me in a pretty dress and told me not to climb any trees. What did I do? I climbed a tree. When I came down my dress was shredded. I went home and hid it and put on another one. When my grandmother saw that, she made me sit down and gave me a needle and thread and said, ‘You’re going to learn to sew.’ So I sat down and started sewing, and when I finished I was sure that dress looked as good as new and nobody could sew as well as I could.”
That self-confident little girl grew into a talented and respected maker of traditional native crafts. Her skill is evident in beaded bags of soft deerskin, in the intricate webs of dreamcatchers, and in the finely sewn replicas of Plains teepees that are among her signature pieces. With every piece she makes she passes on a story on a printed card so the recipient will understand its significance to First Nations people.
“The teepee is more than just a tent,” she explains. “It is supported by a circle of fifteen poles. Each pole stands for a value in our culture: kinship, respect, sharing, and so on.”
Strong in her belief that nature’s bounty should not be wasted, Shirley Dedam does not destroy living things to make her crafts. Finding natural materials helps her teach others the same respect. “When we walk in the woods,” she says, “I look for boughs with tooth marks. Then I say to my grandchildren, ‘Look. The beaver cut this for us to take home and make into a Talking Stick.’”
The Talking Stick is itself the source of another lesson. It symbolizes the right of the holder to speak freely from the heart. “Whoever holds the stick speaks without interruption until finished and then passes it on to the next person in the circle. That way, everyone has a fair chance to be heard.”
Shirley and her husband, Dan Levi, work together at their crafts. “He’s my apprentice,” she jokes. Dan does finely detailed decorative drawings, makes exquisite necklaces and chokers of bone and semi-precious stones, and is a master at weaving patterned seams from strips of tanned deer hide.
During the summer, Shirley and Dan sell their work at powwows around the Maritimes. On fall and winter weekends, they travel to the Farmers Market in Moncton. In Fredericton, their work appears in the shop of Shirley’s brother and fellow artisan, Wil Dedam, in the Historic Garrison District. They also welcome visitors, by appointment, in their home at 27 Riverside Drive on the Elsipogtog First Nation, about 17 km (11 mi.) from Rexton, New Brunswick, where they are glad to share more Mi’kmaq stories about the use and origins of their work.
SHIRLEY DEDAM
Craftswoman/Native Crafts
27 Riverside Dr.
Elsipogtog First Nation (Big Cove)
(near Rexton)
506-523-0189
E-mail: moineepit@hotmail.com