A new project on Prince Edward Island is aiming to honour and remember missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people.
The project, called The Silent Jingle, is led by Lox MacMillan-Metatawabin, a 22-year-old graduate of Holland College originally from White Bear First Nation in Saskatchewan.
At the heart of the project is a red velvet-like hooded cloak, covered in traditional jingle cones. Each cone is engraved with the name of a missing or murdered Indigenous woman or two-spirit person.
“Every single jingle represents an MMIWG2S+ and and the sound of the jingles is to allow voices to be heard that were silenced,” MacMillan-Metatawabin said.
Her team has been putting out calls on social media to collect names and is inviting people from both Canada and the United States to send submissions. As of her interview with CBC on Thursday, 79 names had been submitted.
“I do want to showcase the numbers, and that’s why the jingles are so important because it represents a person, it represents a girl or a woman,” she said.
“There’s been more talk about reconciliation and healing and everything for our communities, but there’s still so much more that needs to happen, and this is just one project that could maybe help support the process of healing for our communities.”
Names are still being accepted until April 22. People can submit by contacting the team through email.
The completed cloak will be unveiled during a public event on May 24 in P.E.I., MacMillan-Metatawabin said. Details about the event will be posted on the project’s Facebook and Instagram pages, The Silent Jingle.
From sticky note to project for healing
The idea for The Silent Jingle began about two years ago when MacMillan-Metatawabin was working at Mi’kmaq Printing and Design in Charlottetown.
The idea holds deep personal meaning for her. Her grandmother was a Sixties Scoop survivor, and her father was a federal Indian day school survivor. MacMillan-Metatawabin said her parents and grandparents worked hard to give her a good life and she has always wanted to give back.
“I always knew that in my life I wanted to do something to help women and to help my Indigenous community.”
Last year, she applied for and received a grant aimed at tackling gender inequality. That funding helped turn her vision into reality. She then assembled a team of nine people, including a designer to create the cloak.
“We chose a red cape and not a dress because we wanted the cape to be able to fit anybody, if anybody needs to wear it down the road,” she said.
“There’s going to be some black fur that’s going to be on the hood… The black fur is also to commemorate the Inuit peoples.”
Every single jingle represents an MMIWG2S+ and and the sound of the jingles is to allow voices to be heard that were silenced.– Lox MacMillan-Metatawabin
MacMillan-Metatawabin says that the cloak is also meant to spark conversations and raise awareness.
“If you have no idea… [about] Indigenous peoples or MMIWG2S+ whatever, if you just, like, see a red cape, it draws your attention,” she said.
Each time someone sends in the name of a loved one, it’s a moment of trust and respect, she said.
“It’s such a big deal to be able to open wounds and share these names, and for us, it’s such an honour, so we want to make sure that everything is respectful and with love and compassion.”
