Planting seeds for the future

Elder Yvonne Thomas shared tobacco seeds with participants in her Seven Sacred Teachings Youth Gathering workshop.

February 4, 2010: Volume 37 #3, Page B6

“It doesn’t take long to germinate,” Thomas said, explaining that the seeds need to be started indoors or in a greenhouse in March. “When the 24th of May comes, and the ground is warm, you can transplant the seedlings, the small plants.”

Thomas said tobacco came from the sky world when the people arrived here on Turtle Island.

“It’s an ever growing plant,” Thomas said. “You only need to turn the soil and it will grow.”

Youth at the Seven Sacred Teachings Youth Gathering were given tobacco seeds for planting in their home communities by Elder Yvonne Thomas’ helper during her Jan. 28 workshop on Elder teachings on tobacco and medicines.
-Rick Garrick - Wawatay News

Thomas said her late husband Jake had turned over the soil in their yard where his father had planted tobacco 10 years previously, and the tobacco plants came right back.

“The plants don’t grow any higher than two feet,” Thomas said. “The leaves will grow about five or six inches across when it’s a really good healthy year.”

Thomas said the pods contain hundreds of seeds.

“When the tobacco matures is probably about August,” Thomas said. “You don’t take the whole plant but you pick off the leaves and put them in a place to dry.”

Thomas said the leaves need to be dried in a place with very little humidity where the air is constant.

“When the leaves dry up, it might take a couple of weeks for it to dry up, once it is dry you can crunch them up and put it in a brown paper bag,” Thomas said. “We use that all through Indian country – and for a long time it has gone underground.”

Thomas said when the newcomers first saw the native people smoking tobacco, they didn’t realize the native people were not inhaling the tobacco smoke.

“It is not to be inhaled,” Thomas said. “It is meant for ceremonial purposes.”

“Today there are many people who are addicted to smoking tobacco.”

Thomas said when her late husband died 11 years ago, she had to take out her tobacco and ask for help from the Creator.

“It was really a trying time because we did everything together, we travelled together, I always helped him behind the scenes,” Thomas said. “It seemed like my world collapsed. I was burdened with grief. I didn’t know how I was going to pay my bills.”

Thomas said it was a “very tragic” time and it took her a long time to overcome her grief.

“With my (traditional tobacco) I asked the Creator, I asked the … four celestial beings to give me the power and strength to stay on that good path.”