Dancing for Healing: Selena Medicine Shield shares the meaning behind the Jingle Dress

By Chevi Rabbit, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

(ANNews) – For Selena Medicine Shield, entering the powwow circle in a jingle dress is about healing, prayer, connection, and sharing culture with others.

Medicine Shield, who lives in Lethbridge, Alberta, and is from Siksika Nation, has been dancing since she was a young child. Through jingle dress dancing, she has found a pathway to strengthen her cultural connection and support healing within herself and her community.

“The jingle dress to me means just to heal,” said Medicine Shield. “I dance jingle, and so the jingle dress is a healing dance.”

She explained that the dance allows her to experience healing personally while also helping others. “When I enter the circle, I’m able to not only feel good myself, but to help others around me feel good as well, and just to share my culture with others as well.”

The jingle dress dance is recognized as a healing dance that originated among Anishinaabe communities and has been carried by many Indigenous Nations. For dancers, wearing the regalia comes with a responsibility to honour the teachings and intentions behind the dance.

Medicine Shield said that responsibility begins with the mindset and spirit a dancer carries into the circle. “The responsibility that comes with wearing a jingle dress is the healing aspect of it as well,” she said. “I think that’s a huge responsibility – just having a clear mind and a clear heart when you’re dancing.”

She added that prayer is also an important part of the dance. “When we dance, we pray as well. So I think that’s the responsibility of a jingle dress dancer.”

One of Medicine Shield’s most meaningful pieces of regalia is her red jingle dress, which carries a deeply personal connection to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit (MMIWG2S+) movement.

The movement is important to her but the dress is also in honour of her grandmother, Gloria Black Plume, who was murdered in Calgary in 1999. “I actually never got to meet her. She was murdered in Calgary, and so growing up, I’ve always been an advocate for the missing and murdered.”

Medicine Shield said the colour red carries powerful meaning within many Indigenous communities and has become a symbol connected to bringing attention to those who are missing and honouring their spirits. “The red is the only colour in many tribes – there are stories behind the jingle dress,” she said. “I also heard that red is the only colour that spirits can see. That’s why they use the colour red for the missing and murdered, because they’re trying to bring the spirits back home.”

For Medicine Shield, the sound of the jingles represents another important part of the dance. “The sound of the jingle dress represents the sound of healing and the sound of just coming together,” she said.

She explained that the sound of the jingles moving with the drum creates a unique experience. “It’s very significant because it’s the only one that has the jingle sound.”

Jingle dress dancing has also shaped who Medicine Shield is today. “I honestly don’t think I would be where I am today without dancing,” she said. “I think that it really shaped who I am and just being involved in my culture in some type of way.”

Although she did not grow up heavily involved in ceremonial practices, she said powwow became an important way to reconnect with culture. “I wasn’t really involved in ceremonial types of ways. I wasn’t privileged enough to grow up that way. And so I think that powwow and dancing has definitely helped me go on the right path and continue teaching others what I’ve learned as well.”

Medicine Shield also emphasized the importance of ensuring Indigenous youth involved in systems such as child welfare and foster care have opportunities to experience culture. “There’s a lot of our people who are in the systems, and they don’t get to experience this type of culture,” she said. “I think it’s really important that we teach others as well about our culture.”

For Medicine Shield, the powwow circle represents unity and connection. “The powwow circle to me represents bringing the community together, Indigenous and non-Indigenous as well.”

As a Blackfoot woman, she shared that the circle reflects important teachings connected to the Creator, Apistotoke, and Naato’si, the Sun. “When we look at ceremonies or anything like that, it’s all in a circle. Even powwows are in a circle.”

For Medicine Shield, every step inside the circle carries a responsibility – to honour those who came before her, support healing, and continue sharing culture with future generations.