Barbara Wilkeswishes to exist in the normative state of wellness intended for all be-
ings at the time of Creation. Wellness is conceptualized as balance and
harmony. The potential for harmony (or fulfillment) exists only when
all forces and beings in the universe (the individual, the family, and
the tribe) are in balance. In addition to existing within the relational
order, Kxa’khom also exists in the Kainai spatial and social orders. In
terms of “space,” this relationship is exemplified in the strong connec-
tion between the Kainai and Kainaissksááhko, the land, or, literally,
“Kainai land.” Traditionally, it included the territory from the North
Saskatchewan River through to and including Yellowstone Park. The
Blood Reserve is now understood as their tribal “home.”
For the Kainai, a moral breach or a failure of reciprocal obliga-
tions calls for the repair of damaged relations. At death, the spirit of
a Kainai who had maintained and fulfilled its reciprocal obligations
during life and, thus, had not broken faith with the local moral or-
der, was admitted to the Cypress Hills, and there resumed life in all
its particulars, with ancestors who had gone before (Calf Robe, per-
sonal communication, 1999 ). In contrast, a Kainai who committed
a serious and unremediated offense (understood as the failure to ac-
cept personal responsibility for one’s actions) would be refused entry
and, thus, risked becoming separated for eternity from earthly and
spiritual kin relations. To break with the precepts of the local, moral
order was to risk everything and represented the most severe form of
retribution a Kainai could experience.
The Kainai worldview privileges process as opposed to product,
or actions as opposed to goals (Little Bear, in Battiste 2002 , 78 ). Ev-
ery thought or action, from its inception to its fulfillment, is valued
equally. For example, in intuiting the design of a drum, gathering the
materials and fashioning a finished product, each step is equally sat-
isfying and fulfilling. All things happen when the time is right, when
each of the necessary preconditions for an occurrence have been sat-
isfied. There is nothing to be gained by rushing or taking shortcuts.
The preference is always to let the process play out “on its own” or
in the “the right” time. Pleasure is consequently understood as a fea-
ture of the process as a whole, rather than as a reward deferred until
a goal has been realized. Thus, time cannot slip away, be wasted, or