The Birthing Tree

In February 1968, two 12-year-old girls, Susan and the narrator (Aliet), study together for college despite their young age. Susan is deeply interested in the Women’s Liberation Movement and the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, a Canadian government group created in 1967 to study gender equality. Susan’s mother occasionally visits Aliet’s home to buy tea for what she calls 'women’s troubles', a euphemism for menstrual or reproductive health issues. Susan becomes Aliet’s first friend who isn’t from the local area or part of the small community surrounding their homes. Their friendship begins when Susan visits Aliet’s house and notices cultural items like ash baskets for garden vegetables and braids of sweetgrass hung over the door, which are traditional Indigenous symbols. When Susan asks if Aliet is Indian, Aliet responds that she is half-Indian but doesn’t know who her father is, which surprises Susan but doesn’t deter her from becoming friends.

Aliet, who is half-Indian and fatherless, grows up feeling a deep need to belong and understand her roots. She searches for connections to her unknown father by looking for similarities in new families arriving in her community, such as fair-skinned children with freckles who might resemble her. She asks about a possible relative named Maggie or looks for old photos but never finds answers. Her feelings of being an orphan intensify in October, when the community gathers, making her parentage a prominent issue in her mind. As she gets older, her focus shifts to her feelings for John, a boy she has known since childhood, but her emotions are complicated by her unresolved questions about her identity and family.

Kiju, Aliet’s grandmother, is a respected figure in their community who helps women give birth under a birthing tree, a traditional practice. She believes that babies born under the tree are connected to their cultural roots because the mother’s birth sac is buried there, symbolizing a spiritual and physical tie to the land. Kiju is heartbroken when families in their community start choosing to give birth in hospitals instead, where modern medical practices like pain relief and formula feeding are used. Hospitals separate mothers and babies for a week, and the birth sac is often discarded, which Kiju sees as a loss of cultural identity. She feels that these changes disconnect children from their heritage and traditions.

Kiju tries to convince families to continue using the birthing tree by visiting them, including Mrs. Jeremy and her daughter Anita. She explains that hospital births strip away cultural practices, such as the birth sac being buried to remind children of their roots, and that pain relief medicines can erase the mother’s memory of the birth, making it impossible to share the birth story with the child. Anita, however, dismisses Kiju’s concerns, arguing that modern ways are better and that people should move forward. Kiju feels defeated but continues to advocate for her traditions, even as fewer women come to her for help. The conflict highlights a generational divide over cultural practices and the value of tradition versus modernization.

In early March, Kiju receives a notice about a town council meeting to discuss 'public safety and childbirth', which she interprets as an attack on their birthing traditions. She fears that outsiders, including people who previously visited their camp with Bibles or pamphlets about modern medicine, are trying to force them to abandon their cultural practices. These outsiders, dressed in suits or with lipstick, spoke of the dangers of traditional medicines and the importance of 'proper education' and abandoning 'Indian nonsense and superstition'. Kiju worries that the town council meeting is another step in the erasure of their way of life. The article suggests that the tension between traditional practices and modern medical systems is escalating, with potential consequences for their community.