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Friends, I would like to say a few words about our sacred drum, tobacco and the ceremonies we carry on as Dene peoples.

I have been getting some feedback lately with people from our Northern communities calling me. They are concerned we are losing our respect for our traditional First Nations' ways. All native nations are familiar with the drum, and when you hear this musical instrument being played, people usually stop what they are doing to listen and find out what is going on. The reason is the drum represents the heartbeat of our Mother Earth.

My southern Dineh brother Johnson Tochoney, who knows a great deal about our culture, explains the drum goes all the way back to when the world was new, when time as we know it began.

Life was just being formed out of the waters and the only sound to be heard at the time, what others call the Cosmic Om, was actually a drum, beating ever so slowly. Always present at our ceremonies is the drum and a fire. Our elders say the fire represents our relatives who have passed on.

You may have noticed when people are around a fire not a lot has to be said, for we are told this is the time when our relatives come to visit us. We honour their presence with our feeding the fire ceremony.

A fire can serve a number of useful purposes, such as keeping us warm, cooking our food and even alerting others when we are in danger. I have always been taught the drum dance circle is a holy and sacred one, and even one in which our late relatives are there dancing, so the drummers have a sacred duty in calling forth these long-gone relatives to be with their kinfolk.

The elders also explained to me our sacred tobacco is a kind of sacred form of currency, with which one can pay for an elder to lead an opening prayer at a ceremony or a meeting, for instance.

So, friends, when I hear of people now wanting money to say an opening prayer or to drum at a gathering it makes me feel very sad for our people, and I wonder what we have let ourselves become. God does not ask you for money when you ask for something good for yourself and your relatives, so why should you turn around and ask for money to pray? When I hear of drummers drinking while taking a break at a drum dance it also concerns me, for this drum is very powerful and can somehow harm the people for letting this happen.

Today, many of our poor elders have taken it for granted that they have to pay for people to give them meat or fish, and I don't think this is right, either. The fish, the caribou and the moose don't stop you to ask you for money before they give of themselves, so why should we?

Anyway, friends, I do hope that these comments will make you take a good look around and think about how we conduct ourselves around our sacred drum, our tobacco and our ceremonial ways today. Mahsi.

- Antoine Mountain is a Dene artist and writer originally from Radilih Koe'/Fort Good Hope. He can be reached at www.amountainarts.com