BLAINE - Lummi Nation will offer the first blessing for a new healing totem that will be featured in an exhibit opening in October near the nation's capital.
The totem is the work of master carver Jewell Praying Wolf James.
The blessing ceremony is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Monday, Sept. 12, at Semiahmoo Park on Semiahmoo Spit. Following that the 20-foot totem will travel nearly 5,000 miles as it heads to a final ceremony at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Md. The library, a part of the National Institutes of Health, is the world's largest biomedical library. The totem will serve as a central element of an exhibit called "Native Voices: Native Peoples' Concepts of Health and Illness."
The exhibit will show how native concepts of health and illness are closely tied to community, spirit and the land. Visitors will experience the views, vision and diversity of native people through their own words and expressions.
