Note: Telling The World Into Being was a reserach note towards the fulfillment of a Masters of Arts degree in Northern and Native Studies, Canadian Studies Program, Carleton University, March 1990. It is a long document. A print version is available at left.
Summary
The mind is very powerful both in its unconscious and its conscious workings. Legends and stories sustain and encourage intuitive ways of knowing, and naming things and telling tales about them gives shape and colour and meaning to human reality. Through story and legend and song, things can be “realized” into being. The native story-teller is not simply entertaining his audience but telling the world into being, and has done so from the beginning.
Within this understanding, some aspects of native life are discussed and some native stories told.
Introduction
My feelings about his paper are much the same as those of Farrell Toombs, regarding some of his written work.
What began as a private effort to understand my own perceptions has become an editorialized statement, written to be understood rationally; and I am filled with a sense of disquietude over my readiness to comply and attempt to write clearly. The price of what is said to be rational clarity, I suspect, is an illusion of security, and security, even as an illusion is one of the most treacherous ideas released from a Pandora’s box. Realizing however, that I have difficulty in speaking with simple ease, I will try to say directly what I perceive.
This paper is about some personal experiences, thoughts, needs, ideas, along with bringing greater use of intuition in the livelihood of a people now known as North American Indians. The usage in the paper will fluctuate between natives, Indians, Aboriginals, way of life and the people. This paper does not intend to spell out what is right and what is wrong, only to give a view of some of my personal observations and much verbal communication with Indians.
There are many tribes of Indians with vast differences and these too, belong in this paper. I however have no room to add them all. If a contradiction seems evident, it is only to spell those differences. How different tribes see the world in which they live and how some of these tribes unconsciously relate to the life surrounding them through the stories, legends, the land, the language, songs, dance, silences, dreams, animals and insects, water and fish will be interspersed throughout this paper.
The paper itself may differ somewhat from a conventional research note as proposed. There is a reason for this. It is difficult for me to separate one from the other as all things are one. Whole-holistic and to separate one from the other would not (for me) create something called community. There is however conscious awareness and unconscious awareness. Most of this paper will be dealing with the latter. Because of my own language, many things will appear to be missing or unexplained. These however I leave to the reader to figure out.
Land
Most tribes I know of consider land to be sacred and refer to the land as Mother, our Mother, or our provider. I have met one or two tribes of Indians who refer to her as grandmother. However the ones I know best refer to the moon as grandmother and the sun as grandfather. Most but not all say you cannot buy or sell her. We belong to her, not her to us. Whatever you take from her, you must give something in return. She is the only seat of learning there is as well as the only provider there is. For an example; when you should take an animal for your sustenance, you must return something to mother the Earth. Therefore because tobacco is sacred to us, we give tobacco to the Earth and talk to the animal asking for forgiveness, we sometimes return some of the meat and we burn sweetgrass, as sweetgrass I the messenger to the great spirit. You also ask for forgiveness from all the spirits and thank them for helping you. You thank the fish and water and all the things who have names. Each element within the circle sustains the totality of who the people are. The land with all its elements are one, which gives you your identity. To destroy the land or divide it up is to destroy our identity.
This is not always a consciousness, in many it’s just a knowing, an unconscious awareness. Because of the sacredness of the land the relationship to it must be total. When I talk about total it means everything is inclusive, from every grain of sand to all the things we have named. The land is our Mother and Father and all the people who have returned to her. This is why the people get so upset to see our burial grounds being dug up. They say, do not disturb my mother and father they are buried there. To quote an old man by the name of Dan Pine from Garden River Reserve near Sault Ste. Marie Ontario:
“We have been undressing for too long, it is time to put our clothes back on. It is time to go back home. Take the water that flows, and the lakes and bring them back in here within your spirit the fish in the water, the insects, the animals, the birds that fly and those that do no, and bring those too, back within you. The trees and rocks, the land and sky, the clouds, the winds, the air, the stars, and bring these too back within you where they rightfully belong. Take the spoken word in every language there is on this Earth, this too belongs within you. Then, and only then, will you be home and you will be fully dressed, and when the knock comes to your door you will be there to open it. Each foot will know exactly where to fall. You then cannot make a mistake.”
As an Australian Aborigine puts it in the book The Songlines “to wound the earth, is to wound yourself, and if others wound the Earth, they are wounding you. The land should be left untouched: as it was in the Dreamtime when the ancestors sang the world into existence.”
Dreams
One of the interesting things about dreams is that most of these became a means of controlling behaviours. There arose from these dreams such sayings as if you make fun of a crippled person, you will grow a wart on your nose. They would indicate someone who did have a wart on their nose, and say, she made fun of a cripple when she was young. Another if you put your left foot in your right shoe or put them on the wrong feet, the people would sya, you will meet a bear. Others like, if you don’t sing when you first wake, you will have a bad day. Don’t ever talk back to an elder, as he has power and may do something to you. These are just a few which were all suppressed by Christianity and called superstitions, yet the Christians talk about Santa and the bunny rabbit that lay eggs, Christ, the cross, death and rising, Virgin births – all myths to shape their lives, just as we had myths to shape our lives.
Each myth had its purpose and some of the legends or stories were really fascinating. One of the most interesting thing was the acquisition of power. Nearly all the people from very young received a guardian spirit and some more than one. Then through their dreams they found out about who or where they got their power. Most of those were from animals, a few from fish and birds but most from animals as listed below.
Various powers held by some animals:
Coyote – gave power for killing deer and gambling
Dog, otter – power for swimming
Bear – made one rich, power made bears mind you like a god, the people were also resistant to arrows as a bear is
Eel – to escape from enemies because it’s slippery
Rattlesnake – gave the power to be immune to rattlesnake poison
Cougar – gave power for killing deer also but one who had it said that it was very weak
Grizzly bear – guardian spirits, strong, riches because of its great strength. Power to kill grizzlies.
Deer – power to kill deer
Mouse – power for foot racing
Hawk – power to cure rattlesnake bits, because it ate rattlesnakes
Insects, worms – power to cure TB
Horsefly – power to cure blood poisoning
All came in dreams.
If one claimed or lied about his power and pretended to have more than he really had, everyone else with power knew it. When I was very young I was told to try to hang onto or remember my dreams. Most all young people were taught this. In my travels people would say the same thing. Everyone would wait around the breakfast table to hear each other’s dreams. If you chose not to tell that was alright. This happened especially with the old people as that is where most of us lived. It didn’t have to be a relative, just the elders where you happened to be. You see we were not always raised by our own parents as every house was home to us.
When explaining your dream, the elders would ask for as much detail as possible. These dreams somehow told them many things and as you grew older it began to tell you things too. I remember one dream of a house and farm, the horses, the dogs, and a young girl who lived there. Some years later we were passing through that area and my father said we will stop here for the night – I know this man. I had never been there before but I began to recognize the land and as soon as we saw the house and the barn, I knew it. I even spoke and said I was here before and they have two dogs and two horses and their girl lives here about as old as me. I was told not to talk of silly things and I kept quiet. I knew where everything was in that house and I even knew where the well was as I went to get some water at the back of the house by a little clump of bushes. I told my sister and brother to be careful as there is a big log along the path. My father and mother never said nothing and everything was forgotten till I told my Grandma one day. Yes, she said, just try to remember them as they might be useful one day.
Knowledge
“Forever” knowledge and wisdom was, and still is, within all life. The lesson of the spider as he makes his web is to try to teach us that we live in an abstract world. There was a time when Native people took knowledge and wisdom from the life around them. They watched other animals, the birds and insects, to learn how to survive. In order to do this the people would have to go through a similar experience to gain that knowledge, and with it came wisdom. How to pass this on without just giving information. Mostly these came through stories or legends, but mostly through silence and movement.
A great deal of this behaviour still exists. If you should ask where a certain person lives, the people generally use their mouth by extending their lips and turn their head to the direction to go. In many cases their eyes and facial expressions are used. Seldom are the hands and arms used. Many times I have entered a home and the people just nod at you, and you sit on a box or chair by the door, while the activity in the home goes on. Someone brings you a cup of tea and maybe something to eat. When you are finished visiting you just leave quietly. All this time no words are spoken. You observe and feel the home, and the people in it. It seems words get in the way of observing and feeling.
One day I came out of a washroom in a bar and I met a fellow coming my way, he was at least twenty feet in front of me and the space between the wall and the chairs at the bar was a least eight feet, yet as we met each other, we bumped into each other. Just our shoulders met and we both apologized. Nick Christias was sitting on a bar stool and he said, Wilf come and sit down and have a beer. So I sat down and I started to talk to him about what just happened. I went on and said, you know, if you put fifty or more fish in a bowl and stick your finger in the water, all of the fish move at once, yet not one will bump into another. It’s just like insects, as I have seen them extending for six or more feet behind a small clump of bushes, they just sway in the wind like the bushes sway. They too don’t run into each other. I have seen this with birds and many animals as well. Nick said, that’s because we are human animals, we use our brains. Oh all of life has brains, but we are the only ones who use it the way we do. Most other life depends on instinct or intuition. Our brain, because we think, we place ourselves above all the other animals, and therefore we should control them. Look what we have done to our forests, our water, our land, our animals, our insects, in fact all of life, but mostly to each other. I’m not saying that the brain isn’t any good but I feel we don’t know how to use it.
Knowledge was also power. The power of any animal might help a man. If his power were beaver then he would think of this. It would tell him to eat little twigs or pieces of bark, just as the beaver does. This would come in a dream. Those things he ate would then taste like berries and meat.
Song
Many people call our songs chants, even some of our own Native people. What people don’t know is these songs are taken from all life itself. When different birds sing people say, my what a beautiful song that bird is singing, or they hear a coyote and the same thing is said by most people, but when Native people sing it isn’t the same. What is usually not known is that because we mostly don’t have words, these songs are taken from the animals and birds, the water, the leaves of trees blowing in the wind, and the wind itself. It seems to enter into the Earth and comes up through your feet and through your body and out of your throat through your mouth. It carries with it a tremendous feeling deep inside of you. Many of our songs come through visions and dreams. Sometimes just through observation.
Long ago each person had his own song and only he or she could sing it. It would be used at times of hunger, at times of death, or whenever there was need. Then there were social songs, songs of thankfulness, when the berries were ripe, when the corn was ready to be harvested, songs for animals. Because they sing and dance and talk about their celebrations of knowledge, they are essentially telling the world into being. Words, as you say them, become poetry and song.
Song wasn’t necessarily put to music as we now know it, but rather words used in a poetic manner. Like the great orators of the native people and the ones from the Western European nations. Poems are basically song, as are all words of poetry. An unsung land is dead if the songs are forgotten the land itself will die.
Australian native people talk about songs in a similar way. As one man explained to the author of The Songlines,
“…each totemic ancestor, while traveling through the country, was through to have scattered a trail of words and musical notes along a line of his footprints, and how these Dreaming tracks lay over the land as “ways” of communication between the most far-flung tribes. A song, was both map and direction finder. Providing you knew the song, you could always find your way across country, and would a man “Walkabout” always be traveling down one of the Songlines? “In the old days, yes,” he agreed. “Nowadays, they go by train bus or car.”
Each thing before being done was sung by a power song: fishing, hunting certain dangerous animals, travelling, fighting, canoeing. The one who had the power led the group. One could have power for several different things and these came through song and dream.
The Indian Way of Life
The Indian way of life was mostly just being. There were hard processes of learning that took place but you were allowed to do it for yourself and your way. When a boy became the age of seven or eight he was then taken over by the father. Up to this time he learned through the mother. The girl stayed on the mother’s side and was raised by her. Mostly they learned first and foremost respect for all their elders. Along with this they learned acceptance, unlike in this mainstream society where understanding comes before acceptance. The stories that were told by the elders were mostly mythologicial. Through these stories, children learned song and myth so that they could call on these abilities to survive. Through the stories and their experiences they talked the world into being.
Raising children played a very important role in their way of life. From childhood they were put in a position to view the world the same as other people; that is, they were put into cradle boards and were leaned against the wall and put on their mother’s or father’s back, so that their head were always in an upright position. When in hammocks the child was kept in motion by a cord or two so that anyone could pull this cord and keep the child in motion.
When a child was growing up, he or she was allowed to make his or her own discoveries about all of the environment. We had no schools or teachers, we listened to the language we heard around us and saw the relationship each one had to whatever they were talking about. No one told you, now say pubwin (which means chair) or table or what to do with it. It was all our to discover. When they say knife (makimon) we heard it, saw what was happening and related to it the same way – but there was always the opportunity to discover it might be something else besides a knife.
As children we were wrapped in a blanket, our arms down by our sides, so this was also the reason we don’t use our arms as much as Western Europeans. Whenever a person came into the house, he or she was able to pick up the child, it didn’t matter if the baby was wet or had a dirty diaper, or its face was washed. In Western Society I found the child had to be acceptable before it would be picked up. That is to say – its face had to be clean, the diaper changed, so that the child knew it would only be accepted on those terms. An Indian child would be accepted on any terms.
Let us now talk about the Law abilities of the animals. The animals as most people perceive them are dumb, but it is the power of the animals which sustains us humans. They somehow know when and where they can make a contribution. If you believe, that is if you make a prayer for them, your request can be fulfilled, although not without patience and a lot of hardships.
What we will be dealing with here is the past called mythology. As Joseph Campbell says in his book The Power of Myth, “I find the American Indian tales and narratives to be very rich, very well developed.” Bill Moyers, who is asking the questions, says “You talk about this Peyote Culture emerging and becoming dominant among Indians as consequence of the loss of the buffalo and their earlier way of life.” Campbell answers and says:
Yes, ours is one of the worst histories in relation to the native peoples of any civilized nation. They are non-persons. They are not even reckoned in the statistics of the voting population of the United States. There was a moment shortly after the American Revolution when there were a number of distinguished Indians who actually participated in American government and life. George Washington said that Indians should be incorporated as members of our culture, but instead, they were turned into vestiges of the past. In the nineteeth century, all the Indians of the Southeast were put into wagons and shipped under military guard out to what was then called Indian Territory, which was given to the Indians in perpetuity as their own world – then a couple of years later was taken away from them.
Recently, anthropologists studied a group of Indians in Northwestern Mexico who live within a few miles of a major area for the natural growth of Peyote. Peyote is their animal – that is to say, they associate it with the deer and they have very special missions to go collect peyote and bring it back. These missions are mystical journeys with all the details of the typical journey. First, there is disengagement from secular life. Everybody who is going to go on this expedition has to make a complete confession of all the faults of his or her complete living. If they don’t, magic is not going to work. Then they start on the journey. They even speak a special language, a negative language. Instead of saying, “yes” for example, they say “no,” or instead of saying “we are going” they say “we are coming.” They are in another world. Then they come to the threshold of the adventure. There are special shrines that represent stages of mental transformation on the way. And then comes the great business of collecting the peyote. The peyote is killed as thought it was a deer. They sneak up on it, shoot a little arrow at it, and then perform the ritual of collecting the peyote. The whole thing is a complete duplication of the kind of experience that is associated with the inward journey, when you leave the outer world and come into the realm of spiritual beings. They identify each little stage as a spiritual transformation. They are in a second place all the way.
This has to do with the peyote being not simply a biological, mechanical, chemical effect but one of spiritual transformation. If you undergo a spiritual transformation and have not had preparation for it, you do not know how to evaluate what has happened to you, and you get the terrible experience of a bad trip, as they used to call it with LSD. If you know where you are going you won’t have a bad trip.
Let me take you back to where a people lived, a Law of life. Power was where they saw it, and resided in all living things. It was the people’s idea that each individual must have such power. So they took to the animals and water to receive this power. Through their dreams and visions came such power, including power of song, dance, snakes, birds, fish, water, insects, trees, land, rocks, the power of thoughts, dreams, reason and an endless onslaught of words and sound. They received their power mostly from animals, and some birds. The one with the most power was the eagle; next was coyote, then a chickadee. Elsewhere in this paper is a short list of the various animals and birds and what their power was for.
Ernest Tootoosis used to talk about the natural law and man made law. Natural law is what he called the laws of nature. There were floods, fire, laws of gravity, the flow of water, the winds, thunder, tornados, earthquakes, diseases, etc. There were also the laws of man or as Ernest said, man-made law. This is the law we live by now and it seems to be the destruction of humanity.
The moral of this whole discussion is expressed in a marvelous letter which Chief Seattle wrote in 1852 in reply to an enquiry from the United States government about buying tribal lands for people arriving in the United States. Joseph Campbell says Chief Seattle was on of the last spokesmen of what Campbell calls the Paleolithic moral order:
“The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? The land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of this Earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.
We know the sap that courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the Earth and it is a part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great Eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the (juices) in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man, all belong to the same family.
The shining water that moves in the streams is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember it is sacred. Each ghostly reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father. The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst, they carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give rivers the kindness you would any brother. If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our Grandfather his first breath also receives (its) last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where many can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.
Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the Earth is our mother? What befalls the Earth befalls all the sons of the Earth. This we know: the Earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the Earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, his is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. One thing we know: our God is also your God. The Earth is precious to him and to harm the Earth is to heap contempt on its creator. Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen with the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted by talking wires! Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the Eagles be? Gone! And what is it to say goodbye to the swift pony and the hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival. When the last Red man has vanished with his wilderness and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?
We love this Earth as a newborn loves its Mother’s heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land, you too are part of the land. This Earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you. One thing we know; there is only one God. No man, be he Red man or White man, can be apart. We are brothers after all.”
Legends and Stories
Animals, fish, insects, birds and trees played a very important role in the sacred or religious style of life of the people. They were also a learning process for the people, especially the young. In the legends we find medicines, knowledge, and the way of life of a people. Animals of different species speak freely not only to one another, but to humans as well. Some of today’s medicine men still claim to understand the language of certain animals.
In my personal experience there were old men who claimed to know this language. “We talk to deer,” they would say, “also we talk to leaves which give us our weather. When we take the life of an animal, the ceremony takes time, as we talk to the animal and give tobacco to our mother Earth for thanks for food. We say a prayer, talking to the animal and explaining the reason we took its life, also, how we feel about it. We do this in whatever language we want to speak.”
Let me tell you a legend or two and try to explain this. This is a Sioux legend, “Coyote and Wasichu.”
There was a white man who was such a sharp trader that no one ever got the better of him, or so the people said, until one day a man told this Wasichu, “There is somebody who can outcheat you anytime, anywhere.” “That is not possible,” said the Wasichu, “I’ve had a trading post for many years, and I’ve cheated all the Indians around here.” “Even so, Coyote can beat you in any deal.” “Let’s see whether he can. Where is Coyote?” “Over there, that tricky looking bug.” “Okay, all right, I’ll try him.”
The Wasichu trader went over to the Coyote. “Hey, let’s see you outsmart me!” “I’m sorry,” said Coyote, “I’d like to help you out, but I can’t do it without my cheating medicine.” “Cheating medicine, Ha! Go get it!” “I live miles from here and I’m on foot. But if you’d lend me your fast horse?” “Well, all right, you can borrow it. Go on home and get your cheating medicine!” “Well, friend, I’m a poor rider, your horse is afraid of me and I’m afraid of him. Lend me your clothes, then your horse will think I am you.” “Well, all right. Here are my clothes, now you can ride him. Go get that medicine, I’m sure I can beat it!”
So Coyote rode off with Wasichu’s fast horse and his fine clothes, while the Wasichu stood there bare-assed.
This is a Cree legend: “How the Year Got Twelve Months.”
After the great flood, the animals of the forest held a meeting to decide how many months there should be in a year.
First the caribou suggested that the hair between his toes should be counted, and that should be the number of months in a year, but most of the animals thought that was too many.
Then the loon suggested that the white spots on his back be counted and that should be the number of months that he wanted. But the frog said that was too many, and she would not have a chance to get warm through such a long winter.
The others all laughed at her and slapped her, which knocked her over on her back. As she lay there with her legs in the air, one of the animals said, “Let’s have pity on our sisters.” Then they counted her fingers and toes, which added up to twelve, and all agreed that that should be the number of months in each year, and so it was.
Stories and legends change from story teller to story teller. Some are long, some short, depending on the story teller. Each story teller tried to add something of themselves in each story. It depends on how they hear each story, and some make them up as they go along. If it’s a legend then they try to keep it as close to the original as is possible. Most of the legends and stories were a way of teaching people – about life, about the medicines, the behaviours of animals, and about the reason they look the way they do. Most of all, they were for entertainment.
“Nanabozho:” Ojibway
Winter passed, the rivers began to flow, the green grass appeared and so did the flowers, but the Ojibways went about their tasks unmindful of a great danger that threatened them. For, at this time, two whitement and their guide Atatharko, were journeying into the Ojibway country, searching for a treasure of silver they heard was there. As they paddled through the Gitchie Gumee, the sun shone and the river sparkled, then they came in sight of Thunderbird Mountain. Now the Great Spirit had told Nanbozho not to harm the white men, but for a time he forgot. Fearing they would reach this mountain, he brought on a great storm which tossed the craft the three men were in until it was upset in the water. Because he forgot and disobeyed, the Great Spirit cast a spell on Nanabozho, which caused him to fall eternally asleep. When the storm died away, the Ojibway saw Nanabush turned into stone, lying upon the cape, his face turned towards the sky, and his arms folded across his chest. He lay so near the little island of silver, it seemed he was trying to guard it yet.
This story I have heard many different ways. The stone is known as the Sleeping Giant of Thunder Bay, Ontario.
“The Dog and the Squirrel:” Ojibway
One hot summer day the dog was lying in the cool shade of the apple tree. Nearby the squirrel was busy at work. He ran back and forth from the trees and his home. Each time he made the trip he carried an acorn to store away for the winter.
The dog laughed and said to him, “It is such a hot day, why do you work so hard?” The squirrel answered, “I am getting ready for winter, I already built a nice warm nest and now I am putting food in it.”
The dog went back to sleep.
Soon winter came. The winds blew and the snow fell. The dog was cold and very hungry, he went to see if the squirrel could spare him some food, but the squirrel had just enough to last him til spring. The dog was very sorry that he had not worked during the summer and promised that he would build a house next time.
After a long, cold winter, the snow started to melt and the sun shone brighter and longer. But, as the days grew hot again the dog no longer thought of winter and went back to lying under the cool shade of the apple tree.
This story is from my mother: “The People of the Deer”
There have been many myths and legends told by the Old Ones. This story happened a long time ago when only the People of the Forest lived in this land of ours. During the summer these people lived in the mountains beside a lake or river where it was cool and pleasant. There the men would fish or hunt, and the women would gather berries and dry them for use in the winter. They were a happy people. In the autumn they would travel south to where winter would be less cold and where the snow would not be too deep for their hunting and trapping.
Among these people lived and old man and his wife. They had lived a good life and were very wise. The old many had been a good hunter and had always been a great help to his people, especially in times of great need. And the old women had also done good for her people and had made many sacrifices to the Good Spirits on behalf of others. And the Good Spirits were pleased with the two old people.
The long warm summer went by and when the first flight of the wild geese flew overhead the people prepared to leave on their journey down to the low country. The old man and the old woman waited for someone to come and help them, but no one came. So day by day they made ready as well as they could for the journey down the mountain. One morning they awoke to a land still and silent.
There were no dogs barking as usual, no children’s laughter. Their people had gone during the night. “We must gather a great pile of wood, enough to last a long time,” the old man said. “Very soon now the snow will come and cover up everything.” So they gathered in wood each day and soon they had enough to last them all the long winter, and always with the one thought in their hearts, that they had been left to die.
Storms blew over the mountains and the snows grew deep. At night the old people huddled in their wigwam listening to the Storm Spirits howling up and down the mountains. Their food supplies grew less and less, but the old woman never forgot each morning to feed the spirits of the departed by placing a small portion of food in the fires. This gesture is an old Indian custom which is still practiced today among some of the Indian people, but only once a year. In the autumn, an offering of various foods is given in thanksgiving to the Spirits.
One cold winter night, the old hunter died and the old woman took a deerskin robe and lay down beside the body of her husband. She knew she would die of loneliness and the awful cold. The woman slept, and in her dreams she saw three people enter the hut. A young man and woman, and an old man wearing a headdress of antlers. “Get up and light your fire,” said the old man with the antlers, “the Dancing People are coming.” “My husband is dead,” the woman said, “and I am old and lame and useless.” “Your husband was a mighty hunter,” said the man with the antlers, “the dancing people knew him well. He killed only what he needed, and never wasted anything.” “But he is dead now,” the woman cried again, “and I am left alone.” “Build your fire,” the leader said again, “the Dancing People have powerful medicine and great magic. We have come to help you. Five nights we will come. Keep your fires burning but do not look at us, but only listen and listen well.” Then the visitors vanished.
The old woman awoke and built up the fire. Outside she heard the sound of many footsteps and strange sounding bells and rattles with a weird chancing and music that throbbed to the rhythm of footsteps. But she did not look out but sat by the fire until the sounds ceased and dawn was breaking. For two nights after that the same thing happened. The dancers came again, and left at dawn. On the fourth night, after the old woman had gone to sleep, strangers again entered the lodge. “You have obeyed me,” said the leader, “now look well at this headdress I wear, so that you can make others like it. Also at these rattles we carry. Listen carefully to our songs, you will have use for all this. And when we come tomorrow night, you may look at us, but wait until our dance is almost finished.” Again the strangers disappeared.
On the fifth night the old woman did not sleep, but waited to see what would happen. And when footsteps approached the teepee, she listened again for the weird chanting music that throbbed to the rhythm of dancing feet. And when the dance was almost ended she lifted the door of the flap and saw in front of the lodge, clearly silhouetted in the bright moonlight, the most beautiful and graceful reindeer moving forward and backward with antlers touching, and at the first touch of dawn the deer bolted off one by one. The old woman placed more wood on the fire and sat down thinking about all the things she had seen and heard. Once again the Dancing People came in. Now the leader said, “You know who and what we are. The spirits of the deer have come to help you. We give you medicine with great healing power which you can use to cure the sick and the wounded.”
The old woman took the rattles and bells and sang the songs she had heard and danced to their rhythm. She felt great strength and energy flow through her body. Very soon the old man moved his hand and opened his eyes and sat up and spoke to her. Again the leader spoke, “There,” he said, pointing to the ground where lay a carcass of deer, “there is food that will last you until your people return. Upon the rocks beyond I have scattered the insides of the deer which will forever grow like vines and moss. This you will use as medicine when you need it. With the blood of the deer I have covered the willow tree and hereafter the bark will be red. This you will recognize as a source of healing for internal sickness and disease,” said the stranger. “In the spring, when your people return, tell them all that you have learned. Tell them also, old ones are not to be cast aside but are to be honoured and their wisdom used.”
These stories are not only mythological but they shape the world we live in. In other words we are telling the world into being. Most of the mythological characters have much power. We could compare them to Jesus. Although this mythological person is out of Christianity, the idea is similar nevertheless.
There are many of these characters throughout North America that I’ve heard of, as with most other countries around the Earth. The East coast tribes have Glooscap, Odawa and Ojibway have Nanabush, the Swampy and Woodland Cree have Wee-sa-kay-jac. The Plains Cree have Wasawkeejack, known as Coyote among the Sioux and Western tribes and into the United States and also to the Okanagan in British Columbia. The Blackfeet have Nawpee, and some West coast people have the Raven, although varies up and down the coast.
These mythological figures have power to turn themselves into anything but mostly they are known as tricksters. Any one of them can change himself into a human because he seems always to want to marry a human being. It seems to be always a pretty girl. They also like to gamble and trade wives in the process. It is said that the power contained in their actions is far superior to that of all the animals.
Technology
It used to be that most of the Elders had medicines of one kind or another, some with many, some with a few. Whatever was needed, let’s say eye medicine or stomach medicines, the person in need would just wait and an Elder who had the medicine would show up and administer it, telling the patient also how it was made and how to go about getting it. Nothing was held back.
Now this is all changed. As time changes, the younger people are not learning these medicines because they now believe in the western Europeans’ way of doing things. There are however quite a few going to the Traditional way and learning these medicines.
Ceremonies were held for everything throughout the season. There was one for each season, for medicines, for water, for the food we used, for the animals we used, and the fish. The one who had the power led the group. The power of a person lay in his knowledge of roots, onions, bittersweet, potatoes, sunflower seeds, chokecherries, fungus, pinenuts, fir trees, parsnips, carrots and on and on. Power songs were held for everything before the ceremonies were carried out. Songs were sung for stones, arrows, flint, fishing, housing, hunting, dangers, animals, medicines, encouragement, canoeing, rattlesnake skin, and the one who had the power of anyone of these and many more generally led the group. The feeling as I see it and hear it was that the things we sang were for life giving purposes.
Marriages were different but cannot be recognized wtihint he structure of Western European society. It is indeed sad to say we are the only people in the world where we cannot marry our own or bury our own, all other tribal groups can.
One of the first problems started with cultivation. It says in the second part of Genesis, subdue the world. It seems to me that some part of our organisms split off and we became two. How then do we get back to being one with all life, attempting to become when I already am? I think of myself as a child – running free – they were the happiest moments of my life.
In talking to the native youth their concern is how to go back in sophistication. This however is not possible. We are only living what we are taught. Then what about my kids? I will pass what I know down to them. The greatest threat most of our people face at this time is technology. Through it we lose our identity. What I mean here, no matter whether you teach the language, in fact the whole way of life, it’s still labeled as culture which is an abstract. Few of our people live in a way of life and follow the values of the old ways. What happens then to our mythology? All our stories and legends will not be related to us.
In Thunder Bay Ontario I sat at a table with four native youths. They seemed very interested in my question about where are the native youth headed today and where does technology fit into this. This seemed to be an opening for information and an opportunity for them to release what has welled up inside them for some time. First they said, “We only know what we are taught (or told).” Then a question arose, “But who tells the answer?” All I got was, “Our teachers and sometimes our parents.” I then asked “Who are you?” No one said, “We are Indians.” The first to speak up was my son Greg. He said, “We are a way of life. These people called political Indians are dead. They live only in a culture not real life. To study them is a mistake. Get a real native person in your institutions who speaks his own language. Then things could happen.” He went on to say, “His view of technology may be different from the rest of the group.” One by one they spoke. “Yes, yes, I agree.” Said a girl who was about twenty. “Technology is O.K. but the use of it is not right.” Then another spoke, a boy about twenty-seven. He had just gone back to school at Lakehead University. “Maybe everyone should go to a sweat lodge and go to fast after, just to find out who they are. Then they might discover who we are. We’re not only one, or two or three or more, just one, all in the circle of life.” I then asked, “But what of our myths, what we hand down?” At first there was silence. But the girl spoke up. She said, “It’s in silence.” “But the spoken word is dead like the written word.” “Then what of technology?” I asked. She answered, “That too is dead.” There was not all agreement on this but another girl spoke and she said, “The answer lies in all women,” and she said no more. I tried to find out what she meant but she would not speak.
A white woman spoke and her name was Susan. She said, “Technology is building a wall. What do we do to break it? The wall is between the men and the women.” Greg answered saying that technology, in building that wall, has separated people. “We no longer have to talk to each other. There are machines for that. Even the phone, although you can hear their voice. How then am I going to communicate with feeling to my child unless I’m home? Besides, it isn’t in what you say so much as your presence. But maybe the technology will save us in the end, that is it will put most people out of work so we can finally relate to each other but the environment as well.”
Dance
The native people have all kinds of dances, many of them sacred, which are done only at certain times for different occasions. Our social dances are also sacred like our songs. Many things have changed from the time I was young. Our dancers were then pretty well underground and so was our drum. Should people in Christianity know we had a drum or pipe they would come searching for it. We were not to sing or pray especially in our own language. We were even forbidden to speak it. Only the elders could talk their own language. This primarily was to move us into mainstream society as quickly as possible. All this has now returned but many of our songs and dances were forgotten. We danced for the animals and birds and our movements were to copy what we have seen. Many of these dances came back, held quietly by the old people and taught to us. Most of these however have changed, so we see now our young people dancing for the audience instead of in reverence to the animal. It was a long time ago that we danced to honour the animal. Trying to get into its feeling or its soul was the most important thing.
The calumet pipe dance is now entirely different which is all right, but the honour is just not there. At least it seems so to me, because I don’t get the feeling of the honour in it. What it was like before my time I do not know. We were taught these dances, but many of the young people have changed them. There are not the same footsteps or the holding of the pipe is different. There were reasons for the various movements and the steps taken. The owl dance, the partridge dance, raccoon dance and the deer dance are performed pretty well as they used to be. One of our most highly sacred dances was the Eagle dance, which is still very similar to its form long ago. All of these dances coincided with all the other things we did to survive. So all of life was not separate but one and the same – “all sacred.” Some of our spiritual ceremonies I cannot talk about as I was told they were too sacred. Some dances do no require a drum but rattles only and sometimes logs are used to keep the rhythm. The rhythm was always the heartbeat.
Ambrose and the Rock
When I was growing up on the Wikwemikong Indian Reserve, I sort of blended into the whole community. I didn’t know then that it was called a community, as we had no word for it in our language. So I was just there. I guess what I’m talking about here is a story that happened when I was around five or six years old. This is about Ambrose.
One day in the morning I was sitting on the counter of Adam’s General Store. I was there with Gordon and Adam. Ambrose arrived with his team of horses and was pulling the wagon with some hay in it. He stopped outside, but didn’t come in, so Adam went to the door, opened it and said, “What can I do for you, Ambrose?” Ambrose was his older brother and had a farm about five miles northeast of the village. “I’m looking for some chains and jacks, shovels and a crow bar, also some rope,” he said. “Just help yourself,” Adam said. He then came back into the store. Just as Ambrose was leaving and said, “I didn’t even ask him what he’s going to do with all that stuff.” Adam then went to the door and asked. As Ambrose was leaving he said, “I’m going to put up my house in a town and I have to move that rock where my house is going to be.” Adam returned and said, “How can he move that rock, why it must be fifteen feet high and eight feet across?” Just then Louise was coming to the store. “Where is Ambrose going with all that stuff?” she asked. “He says he’s going to move that rock where he got that land, and put up a house there,” said Adam. “He’ll never move that rock, it’s too big. I think I’ll go and see what he’s up to,” said Louise. Adam said, “Go call someone at the house to mind the store. I’m going too.” Gordon and I followed. Soon there were other people joining us as the word spread all over the village. There were no girls or women walking with us. Ambrose was up ahead which gave him time to open the rail fence and drive his team in there. We all entered behind him. There was around thirty or more people there of all ages. There was a drop in the ground about two or more feet and the rock sat on the upper level. Beside the rock there was a pile of logs from where he had taken down an old building and hauled them over. Each one was marked so he could rebuild the house just like it was. The logs were grooved but there was no roof, just the logs to hold it up. It was a beautiful spot as you could look out over the bay from there. He unloaded his wagon with all the young fellows helping out. He then drove his team a little ways away, unhitched them and fed them some hay. One of the young boys took his water pail and ran to the nearest well for some water. All the older men sat on the ground in a half circle about ten feet away. They were all talking, asking each other why Ambrose wanted to put up his house right where the rock was. Ambrose said nothing, but got out the crowbar and the pick and shovel and started to dig a hole beside the rock. A young fellow jumped up and said, “Here, Ambrose,” as he handed him a cigarette he had just rolled. “Tell me what you want done.” “I need one hole filled with rocks on each side and those jacks put under there.” “Make them on a slant,” and old man said. All the elders were talking about getting that rock out and trying to move it. Each time Ambrose got up to do something he was just handed another cigarette and told, “Just tell us what you want done.” Soon all the young boys were talking about it and they decided to use the jacks in raising the back of the rock and hitching the team of horses, putting the chains around it and see if they could pull it over to the lower ground. Ambrose tried again to get up but was handed another cigarette and told to sit down and visit. Just then Joanne Rivers was driving by in his wagon and team of horses. He hollered from the road and asked, “What’s going on there?” They told him, “Ambrose is going to move the rock.” “Well! I better see this,” he thought and drove his team beside Ambrose’s and unhitched them. Soon we heard axes and saws going, a ways back of us as the boys were cutting down big poplar trees. Some came and got Ambrose’s team and soon they had two teams of horses back in the bush. They hauled out all these trees, about eight of them and tied the big ends together below the rock. Then went to the smaller end, tied them together and sawed them off even. At this time down field, a group of women and young girls climbed over the fence with buckets and pails. They were full of sandwiches, cakes, tea and even a soft drink for us young boys. We all sat down to eat and drink and have a smoke together with stories being told and much laughter. Another fellow with a team of horses came in and said, “I was told that Ambrose is going to move this rock, pretty big job.” When we finished, the women and girls all left, taking back their pails and baskets. After smoking the boys got up and wrapped the chain around the big rock and hitched two teams of horses to the chain. The horses tried several times to move the rock, but it would raise up as they tightened the jacks lifting the rock a few inches. Then the boys, after much debating, dug a hole under the rock to relieve suction, they said. Now if everyone will push on the rock maybe we can get it onto these logs. More men and young guys arrived. They all started to push as the horses were pulling and slowly the rock moved onto the logs. Ambrose said he couldn’t even get close to the rock. After talking for a while and removing the chain, they hooked it up front and used three teams of horses to haul that rock way down to the end of the field where it sits today. I felt bad to see it go as we used to climb it and look out over the bay. It was three fifteen in the afternoon when Ambrose laid down the foundation of his house and everyone started to leave. Now the question is, who moved the rock?
Farrel C. Toombs, “The Indian in Canada: a query on dependence,” in For Every Indian Who Begins to Disappear, I Also Begin to Disappear (Toronto: Neewin, 1971), 53.
Conversation with Dan Pine, Garden River Reserve near Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Interpreted from Ojibway by the author, an Odawa.
Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines (New York: Penguin, 1987), 11.
Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth (New York: Doubleday, 1988, 13-14.
Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz, eds., American Indian Myths and Legends (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), 342.
This story as well as others included in this text, do not exist in written form but are known to the author through the oral tradition of his people.
Additional References:
Menzies, Heather. Fast Forward and Out of Control: How Technology is Changing Your Life. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1989.
Spier, Leslie, ed. Sinkajatk or Southern Okanagans of Washington General Series in Anthropology. Number 6. Menasha, Wisconsin: George Banta Publishing Co., 1938.
