The British Columbia Coroners Service is probing two deaths linked to a highly secretive native ceremony, which subjects participants to gruelling physical and emotional tests.
Marianne Edwards, 36, and Clifford Anthony George Sam, 18, died while being initiated as spirit dancers at different native communities on southern Vancouver Island.
Ms. Edwards died last February, a few weeks after completing the first phase of initiation, during which she had fasted for several days in a Tsartlip longhouse, near Victoria.
Mr. Sam, a member of the Penelakut band, died on the sixth day of his initiation in December in a longhouse on Kuper Island, near Chemainus.
Neither death is considered suspicious and foul play is not suspected, coroner Beth Larcombe said yesterday. But something appears to have gone wrong in the spiritual quests. Asked if the deaths were being linked directly to the spirit-dance initiations, Ms. Larcombe said: “Possibly.”
She acknowledged that the investigation is looking into the spirit-dance practices, saying the year-long investigation into Ms. Edwards's death has been hampered by the secrecy surrounding spirit dancing, a religious practice among the Coast Salish that dates back thousands of years.
“We have to be sensitive and respectful of the cultural rights, which are, as far as I know, shrouded in secrecy, and obviously there is a good basis for that. I don't understand enough of it myself at this point, so it's a slower process, it's a slower investigation,” she said.
Chief Doug Kelly, of the Soowahlie band in the Fraser Valley, which is part of the larger Coast Salish linguistic group, said many native religious practices are secret and always have been.
“There are some things meant only for those who practise these spiritual events. It's not meant to hide anything,” he said.
Mr. Kelly said the deaths are troubling, but he has great faith in the spirit-dancing rituals, which predate European contact by centuries.
“When these kinds of terrible things happen, we need to reflect on it,” the chief said. “Our people believe there is no such thing as an accident, that there's something to be learned, that there's something to be done and that we need to act responsibly to do our best to make certain that these kind of things don't happen again.”
He said he believes the Coroners Service and the RCMP will do a thorough investigation.
“I have trust in those agencies,” he said.
Mr. Kelly, who is a spirit dancer, was initiated in the Tsartlip longhouse 10 years ago.
He said it was a transformative process that put him in touch with his inner spirit and allowed him to end his addiction to alcohol.
Mr. Kelly said that before he was accepted as a spirit-dance initiate, he faced a lengthy interview about his personal habits, his health and his relationships with his wife and family.
“I can tell you the Tsartlip elders took this all very, very seriously,” he said. “They conducted a very thorough assessment before accepting me.”
Mr. Kelly said, however, that spirit-dance leaders have to be constantly aware that the ancient practices they are following evolved in very different times.
“Because of significant societal changes over the last 150 years, we are faced with different circumstances,” he said.
“Our ancestors didn't have to contend with addictions and substance abuse, or diabetes. People are no longer as physically active as they once were. We jump in a car now if we want to go somewhere. We don't run or take a canoe.”
Pamela Amoss, an anthropologist and author of Coast Salish Spirit Dancing – The Survival of an Ancestral Religion, said while initiation ceremonies are physically and emotionally rigorous, deaths are rare.
She said she knew of only one other initiate dying in the past 30 years.
It takes months for someone to become a spirit dancer, Ms. Amoss said. The initial stage, during which the two Vancouver Island people died, usually lasts from five to 10 days.
During that period, initiates are typically taken to a longhouse where they fast, drink small amounts of water, and may be subject to lashing with cedar branches, dunkings in cold streams and other hardships. They are supposed to be under 24-hour watch during this stage.
The process is designed to put the initiate in touch with an inner spirit who, once found, can guide them through life.
“It's a period when the initiate is learning, as the native people say, to make a home for his or her spirit,” she said.