Walking with the Deer People

The blood of the deer people, the Ita aⁿyadi, flows through my veins. I feel their gentle spirits guiding me, their magic protects me, and their wildness calls me home to the forest. 

I have long searched for a spiritual anchor to the land of my ancestors, to those whose blood I carry, whose memories carry me. My patrilineal ancestors were Saxons living in northern Germany. They were sea traders who joined the Hanseatic League, and later migrated to Britain, where I live now. To them, the deer, along with the bear, were sacred totemic animals who bridged the world of man to the world of spirit. 

My father’s matrilineal line runs through the Cuevas and Ladner families who migrated from Spain and France to Southern Mississippi, and who intermarried with local Gulf Coast populations that included indigenous people, forming the base of the "Creole" population that expanded into Louisiana and beyond. The intermingling of bloodlines is my heritage. I am a child of both the colonizers, those who brought disease and strife to the Native American tribes, and the natives themselves, whose trauma still echoes in the lands that were stolen from them.

My research led me to a specific tribe - the Biloxi -  a Siouan-speaking tribe, first encountered by French explorers in 1699, but who had been settled in the region long before. The Biloxi called themselves Tanêks(a), "the first people," and they were a matrilineal society where the healers, and sometimes spiritual leaders, were women. Their word for chief, ąyaaxi or yaaxi, was also the word for medicine man or shaman. We know that there were three clans: Ita aⁿyadi, the Deer people; Oⁿʇi aⁿyadi, the Bear people; and Naqotodc̷a aⁿyadi, the Alligator people, and that most Biloxi identified as Deer people.

Totem animals of the Biloxi and Saxon tribes

I discovered fascinating synergies and key differences between the northern Germanic tribes and indigenous southeast tribes of the US. They revere the same animal totems, but in different ways. Both tribes revered the eagle as divine messenger, but there is a directional difference. In Siouan tradition, the eagle brings messages to the creator or to elder ancestors.  Wearing an eagle feather was an honour and served to attract the attention of the divine. The native was the initiator, he or she would pray, and release their prayer to the eagle. In Saxon tradition, the eagle sits atop the World Tree, bringing messages from the gods to the tribes. Wodan, the chief Saxon god, often took the form of an eagle to observe and judge the actions of man. The Saxon must act in ways worthy of the gods attention to receive blessings and be witnessed by the divine. 

In the traditions of the Biloxi tribe, the mother bear is kin. She nurtures her young through the times before winter. Her hibernation is a death-and-rebirth process. Emerging in Spring from the womb of Mother Earth, the bear would have become greater in spirit and lesser in body, bringing with her the healing knowledge that the tribe would learn through observation. Saxon tribes revered the male bear, bjørn in Old Norse, for its strength, ferocity and endurance. In pre-historic Germanic shamanism, the bear was worshiped as a guardian spirit. The bear was king of the animals, but also he was seen as ancestor, as kin. In this perspective is a great similarity between the Siouan and the Saxons. Pagan bear cults were, in fact, so widespread in Europe that the church felt the need to eradicate them, and replace the bear with the lion as king of the forest.

The deer was regarded by both tribes as a divine protector of the sacred lands, and a messenger between worlds. Deer imagery, names, and totems were embedded in their tribal structures. Hunting was a sacred act imbued with taboo and ritual. The deer guardian spirit, called the Deer Chief, could exact revenge on hunters who dishonored his deer during the hunt. The deer were a significant part of life for both Saxons and Biloxi tribes. They provided food, skins, horns, and a connection to the lands. The tribes had a covenant to protect them, to act as stewards for the land and the deer.

There is what’s left of an ancient forest near my house, a 15 minute walk. I have often stood silently watching the deer with wonder and curiosity, seeing them through the eyes of my ancestors. They exude a gentle, calming energy, and I feel protective of them, like my father before me, who once pulled a rifle on hunters who came to the forest near our family home to hunt our deer family. Without knowing his ancestral connections, I witnessed my father enacting his role as steward for the deer, and this image has stuck in my mind for over 40 years. Even as a young person, I knew our role in protecting them, I knew them as kin, not food.

Let us also explore the great chthonic gods of the Saxons and Gulf Coast tribes, those who guarded the underworld. Much of the area around the Gulf Coast is swampy marshland or coast, where the alligator would be frequently encountered. Ancestor, guardian of the waterways, able to see clearly in murky waters, the alligator spirit was feared and respected in equal measure. The chthonic god of the Saxons was a huge dragon serpent, who carried secrets from the ancestors to the living. Sitting at the base of the World Tree, the serpent represented the transition of our fleshly bodies, renewal and rebirth. 

Exploring these ancestral worlds has brought me closer to my people. When I walk in the forest now, I feel their distant footsteps, I see the forest through their eyes, I listen for the call of the hawk, the kite, the crow, and the soft rustling of the deer. The scent of oak and redwoods, the whispers of trees who have been there generations, they all bring me home.