Our North End Wampum Belt
Kris teaches a resident how to use the bead loom.
If you’ve stopped by the Neighbourhood Shop during our busy Summer Program, you may have seen residents working on a beaded belt that closely resembles Halifax’s North End. Supporting the belt is a custom-built loom that’s just as captivating as the piece itself. Though it looks perfectly at home among the sewing machines and boxes of craft supplies, the loom was generously loaned to us at the start of summer by Kris Reppas (he/him), a Two-Spirit and Trans artist currently living in Kjipuktuk.
As Kris says, “there’s something about beading that is magic. It’s equal parts a spiritual and artistic practice.” The idea to create a beaded community belt that reflects the North End came from Kris, with support from the EOED team and artistic input from residents.
The project began during the Spring Program with the Bringing Our Minds Together sessions, where residents sat with Kris and shared what the North End means to them. Kris drafted the design based on this input and taught folks how to bead with the loom in the following session. Over the summer, the belt was displayed in the Neighbourhood Shop, allowing residents to continue working on it outside of session times. The project reminds us that relational work takes time to do in a good way.
“We all brought something different to the project. [Wampum] belts are ultimately about relationships and recognizing our connections to each other, the land, and our non-human kin.”
“It’s been an honour sharing a bit of my culture with EOED and the North End community,” Kris says. “We all brought something different to the project. [Wampum] belts are ultimately about relationships and recognizing our connections to each other, the land, and our non-human kin.”
Wampum belts have been around for a very long time and represent a living history. “Our Haudenosaunee Confederacy (an alliance between the Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca, and the Tuscarora) is the oldest voluntary democracy in the world,” explains Kris. “Our Wampum belts remind us of that history and our commitment to peace between our nations.”
The process of designing and creating a Wampum belt is deeply spiritual and guided by intuition. Kris expresses that “making belts is an ancestral, meditative process. You are using your hands (physical), thinking good thoughts (mental), and using your breath to regulate your energy (spiritual). When I bead, I am tapping into that ancestral memory. No one taught me how to do it; it’s something I was able to pick up on my own because my spirit knew what to do.”
Kris was born in Orillia, Ontario and grew up fifteen minutes outside of town on a horse farm. “I always wanted to be an artist and saw myself being on that path from a young age. My first art lessons were from a fly fisherman, learning how to create river scenes with oil pastels,” he says.
Kris is Kanien’kehá:ka from Kenhté:ke (Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory) on his mother’s side, and is Macedonian and mixed European on his father’s side. Beading is by far his favourite medium. “When I bead, I’m creating medicine for someone to carry with them.”
“I have a responsibility to teach Ka’nikonhri:io, a Mohawk teaching that means ‘to have a good mind’. ”
“I have a responsibility to teach Ka’nikonhri:io, a Mohawk teaching that means ‘to have a good mind’. Beading is not like other art practices where you can show up in any state. The energy you are beading with is what you are stitching into the piece. If you’re thinking negative thoughts and later give that work to someone, you are transferring that energy to them. This can make them very sick. It’s important to be mindful of what you are sewing into the work you are creating.”
Wampum belts can have many uses. For the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, wampum is used as a guide to narrate history, traditions, and laws. The Hiawatha Belt, made of sinew and quahog shells, is the national belt of the Haudenosaunee. It records when five warring nations; the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk, buried their weapons of war to live in peace. Modern belts tend to be more colourful and personalized, symbolizing a person’s story or representing a relationship to their culture.
Each belt holds a different story to be shared through community and passed down through generations. The story of EOED’s community belt is one of reconciliation, trust, and belonging, so that we can honour our relationship to the North End. “I really want residents to consider what that relationship means to them, and how they’re active in that relationship,” says Kris.
When asked what he enjoyed most about working with the EOED community on the belt, Kris says it was “the care and attentiveness we brought into this relationship. EOED was very supportive and excited about the project; having a project partner with that creative energy makes all the difference in being able to bring something to fruition.”
“I’m hoping that folks use the belt as a reminder of the commitments they have made to their relationship with our neighbourhood. That is a personal journey for everyone but I’m hoping what we’ve been able to create encourages folks to be more active in their care for the North End community.”
