The original design for this year’s seasonal cups embraced Indigenous stereotypes, until young spiritual elder and artist Philip Cote was brought to sweep those away and inject some real meaning into the concept
In 1979, when Philip Cote was 18, he was given his Indigenous name by a well-known elder Joe Couture.
The name is: Noodjmowin. It means ‘healer.’
He went to a naming ceremony and when he was given his name, Cote asked the wise Couture how he had chosen it for him. Cote says Couture told him: “I saw you standing in front of crowds of people. You’re talking, you’re talking to all these people. And when you were talking, all this purple light was coming out of you. And it was coming from you on to all the people, you’re healing them with your words. And you were being healed too.”
Cote was told that part of this healing was his work to overcome the divide between Indigenous and non-indigenous people.
He didn’t expect that one of these healings would…
