Jennifer (Jenny) Craigan, shíshálh Nation matriarch, spirit dancer and wife of Chief Calvin Craigan, passed away on Thursday, March 5 in Totem Lodge in Sechelt. She was 66.
Chief Craigan (híwús), in an interview Tuesday, said his wife of 50 years had been struggling with failing health “for three years or more. She’s been up and down for quite a few years.”
Jenny’s death, he said, was “pretty hard at first for all our nieces and nephews, because she was that kind of person. Whenever any of the families needed help, she was there. She’d appear out of nowhere and help families — that’s just the way she was. Her Indian name is mútiwét, which means Healing Hands. She was a hard-working woman.”
Born Jennifer Maxine Joe and descended on her mother’s side from famed Pender Harbour (kalpilin) chief Dan Johnson, Jenny had reached a point in her last days when she knew it was time to go, Craigan said.
“Three weeks ago, we thought she was going to make it. We were going to do the liver transplant. But two weeks ago, she had a turn for the worse. I guess it was about 10 days ago we reconciled that she wanted to move on.
“She knew at a point that she was too tired and she told me, so we brought her home for our granddaughter’s birthday on a Monday, took her back to the lodge, put her to bed like I usually did, and she just said, ‘I’m tired.’ I said, ‘I know. I’m putting you to bed.’ She said, ‘No, I’m tired.’ ‘So, you’re telling me you wanna leave?’ ‘Yep.’ ‘OK.’”
Craigan said he told Jenny he would be back Tuesday morning for an early breakfast and to start preparing her for her journey.
“But I prepared her that night, spiritually, because we were both spiritual dancers, so I treated her spirit. So Tuesday morning I got there, and I could see in her eyes that her spirit had left.”
On Wednesday, he said, Jenny’s doctor confirmed that she was ready to go.
“So I gathered the family. We all gathered all of our nieces, nephews, and we prepared her and I did my last ceremony with her, and then she left Thursday night at 9:30. We had the chance and the opportunity to make our peace.”
The traditional ceremonies made an impact on Totem Lodge staff, Craigan said.
“When we did the ceremony, we sang her song, drummed her beat and the nurses were all at the door. And they said it was so beautiful that they wanted to kick the door in and become part of it. So I invited the director and all the nurses, and they’re gonna be there at the longhouse on Saturday.”
Winter spirit dancers from the Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island will travel to Sechelt for the funeral service at the longhouse this Saturday, March 14 at 11 a.m.
Jenny’s passing has hit band members hard because of her extensive family ties and “the type of person she was,” cultural director Candace Campo said.
“The relationship she had with her children and her daughters was pretty special,” Campo said.
Adding to the personal impact on band members, she said, Jenny’s death also represents the loss of the chief’s wife only one year into his three-year term.
Craigan said Jenny told him in her last days that she wanted him to carry on as chief.
“I met my staff when she passed away on Thursday, and I said, ‘There’s a reason why I’m gathering you here, because the message from my wife was she wanted me to carry on.’ She was the one who had me nominated. She was the one who wanted me to be the chief again. She knew that I was the one who was gonna lead our people out of the dilemma they were in. So she had that vision.
“She was very instrumental in putting me back in the leadership.”
Craigan said Jenny had a long medical history involving repeated surgeries, but a specialist “determined the essence of what she was going through physically was caused by that really deep, deep depression” that was the result of her residential school experience.
That story is one he intends to tell in greater depth in the future.
“A lot of our people are walking around and are not aware of what they’re carrying,” he said. “Some of them don’t even want to bring it out and it’s eating them away.”
