Reviving Coming-of-Age Ceremony

Before my own children were near their teenage years, I was doing cultural work with Indigenous youth — many in foster care, many adopted, many disconnected from family and culture in ways that were not their fault.

What stayed with me most was how much young people need to know they belong. They need to feel that the people around them see them growing up and are willing to stand beside them as they step into adulthood.

I kept thinking about how powerful it would be if that transition was marked by a coming of age ceremony—when family gathered around and made it clear: we see you. We protect you. We support you.

This was something I knew I wanted for my own children — especially because, in many ways, they were growing up disconnected from extended family and from our traditional territories. When they were little, we couldn’t even afford to take them to Haida Gwaii. After we took on raising their cousins, we were living below the poverty line. Traveling with five kids simply wasn’t feasible. Much of their upbringing happened away from Haida Gwaii. That reality made it feel even more important to intentionally ground them.

So when Marlo was thirteen in 2012, we wanted her transition into womanhood to be marked and witnessed in a way that felt cultural and intentional.

At that time, I didn’t find any historical documentation about Haida coming-of-age practices for young women, no one I asked knew of any. I was still married to her dad, Joel, who is also Cree, so the lens we were looking through leaned more in that direction. We didn’t have a clearly laid-out ceremony to step into.

We invited the small circle of family that we knew would be in her life for the long haul — her uncle Jesse, her cousins Bre and Cole who were raised alongside her like siblings, my mom, her grandma. Just us. We went down to the river near the house where she grew up. My mom smudged her. Jesse smudged all of us. We stood in a circle and, one by one, each of us spoke to her. We gave her our best life advice. We told her what we saw in her. We reminded her that we would always be there to guide her as she stepped into the next stage of her life.

We gave her meaningful cultural gifts. At the end, her dad — trying to lighten the moment — dipped her head gently into the river as a playful cleansing, letting go of childhood and welcoming womanhood.

Cole, Joel, Bre, Marlo, Edna, Jesse

It was simple. It wasn’t elaborate. But it did its job. She felt valued. She felt supported and revered.

By the time my boys were nearing seventeen, life was different. Andy and I were together, and our shared focus on revitalizing parts of our culture that had been left in the past had deepened. We often ask ourselves the same question: how do we bring parts of our traditions back into living practice?

Through research and conversations with knowledge holders — including our friend Woody Morrison, who shared what he knew before he passed from Covid — we were able to find more information about male coming-of-age practices within Haida tradition, particularly accounts from Alaskan Haidas.

What we learned described young men standing waist-deep in the ocean from sunset until sunrise, moving with the tide as it shifted in and out. Their uncle would tend a fire on shore, calling out to them through the night. At dawn, when they came out of the water, branches would be whipped at their legs to wake the body fully back into itself. It was endurance. It was transition. It was stepping across a threshold with witnesses present.

Few families are carrying these old traditions forward in this way. When practices haven’t been visible for generations, they don’t always sit at the forefront of our minds. Yet these are the kinds of responsibilities that shape young people in profound ways.

For us, bringing traditions back into motion is part of how we live.

We had planned to take the boys to Haida Gwaii around seventeen and to do Kaiah’s first, but Covid delayed everything. When we were finally able to go in 2021, we decided to hold the ceremony for both boys together. It was important for us to do this particular ceremony on our traditional territory- to root the boys in the homeland as well as to invite the strength of our ancestors to connect us on the journey.

We asked the men who guide them — their uncle Jesse, their stepdad Andy, their brother-in-law Karver, as well as well respected men in the community-their cousin Percy, and our elected Chief Billy Yovanovich — to stand with them and offer words about walking a good path as men.

The entire week leading up to it, the weather was beautiful. On the day we chose for the ceremony, the storm rolled in. Whitecaps crashing onto the beach. Rain coming down sideways. It was clear they couldn’t stand waist-deep all night in those conditions.

So they went in and stayed as long as they could. They came out, had their legs whipped by their uncle, and then went back in. They did that four times. Watching them choose to return to that cold water, again and again, in the middle of a storm, was powerful and demonstrated their inner strength- they didn’t shy away, they didn’t back out, they didn’t even complain. In a time where comfort and low expectations are often the norm for our young men, I saw something in them — a glimpse of the endurance our ancestors embodied to survive.

Kaiah completed his ceremony with a hand-poke tattoo of our clan crest on his upper arm, performed by Kwiawaah Jones.

I share this because our children move from childhood into adulthood whether we mark it or not. When we gather around them and make that transition visible, something shifts. Ceremony says: we see you. We protect you. We support you. And we expect you to carry yourself with that knowing.

Vast swaths of our cultural practices were intentionally destroyed. Families were separated. Responsibilities were fractured. But our obligation to raise strong, grounded young people has become more important than ever if are to heal the intergenerational trauma.

When I think about Clan responsibility to our youth, I think about actions like this. Not waiting for someone else to revive what was lost. Not assuming it will return on its own. Beginning where we are.

If we want stronger Clans, we raise stronger children. If we want cultural continuity, we practice it. Change at the community level starts in our homes.

This is where it begins. With us.

Kaiah, Erin, Jesse, Marlo, Kobe