Wake services and vigils are being held in Manitoba cities and reserves to honour Merrick, the first woman to head the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs
As the sun rose Wednesday, hundreds of people enclosed the Oodena Circle, a natural shallow on the shoreline facing the confluence of the Assiniboine and Red Rivers in Winnipeg that has been a sacred meeting site for Indigenous peoples for more than 6,000 years.
“The whole country is in mourning,” Mr. Kinew said, a murmuration of birds swirling in the sky above. As a string of pallbearers held the white casket that bore her body, Ms. Merrick’s family arrived in the legislature for a private ceremony. Her own headdress, which she was famous for wearing – as it is usually reserved only for men – was carried by singers at the front, their traditional throat song and drums filling the hallways, echoing around the rotunda.
“Everybody was equal to her,” Mr. Settee said in an interview. “She lifted the voices of those who could not do it themselves, showing up in places our people and communities have not been brave enough to be in, brave enough to speak up in.”
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