The land is a feeling. That’s what Keeper says all the time and I was just beginning to get an idea of what he meant by the second fall I was home. See, according to Keeper all the fuss and trouble the government has with us Indians is on accounta the land. They call it “the Indian problem” and they figure it’s all about us wanting our own governments and to be able to run things on our own. But it’s not, according to Keeper. This so-called Indian problem is really a land problem. It’s always been that way, he says. The way Keeper tells it is that most of them politicians are pretty much aware of the way the land was taken on the sly. So ever since then they’ve been carrying around big blanket of guilt, he says. They put us on reserves telling us we could live the old way there, hunt and fish and trap, do all the things we used to do before the whiteman got here. Said it was for our own benfit. But according to Keeper it was for their benefit, not ours. He says putting us on all these reserves kept us Indians from talking a lot to each other. Couldn’t get together and couldn’t put together any really big plans. Still afraid of a big Indian uprising, I guess. Way Keeper sees it, the government came along and told all the Indians if they put down their arrows and went off to live on these reserves and were good little Indians then maybe one of these days we’d be able to get some of those arrows back. Down through the years they gave us a few back but they kept all the points and feathers and only gave us the shaft. And we been pretty much getting the shaft ever since. Funny guy, that Keeper.
Anyway, what I was meaning to say was that the land is a feeling. The reason the Indians want all these land claims settled is on accounta they wanna protect their connection with the land. It isn’t on accounta they want all of North America back like some people believe. Keeper says nobody in their right mind wants something back that someone else has already wrecked. They just wanna protect their connection. Land is the most sacred thing in the Indian way of seeing. It’s where life comes from and all the teachings and philosophy that kept Indians alive through everything that happened to them all over all these years comes from the land. Lose that connection you lose yourself, according to most people around here. Lose that connection you lose that feeling of being a part of something that’s bigger than everything. Kinda tapping into the great mystery. Feeling the spirit of the land that’s the spirit of the people and the spirit of yourself. That’s what I was learning all along but I needed to get a lot closer to it and that’s kinda what happened that second fall I was home.
See, there’s something I do even now that I first done that second fall. I don’t know why I started really, except that it felt like a good idea at the time. Keeper says it was the first stirrings of that woman side of me calling out directions. Intuition, the gift of the mother. Anyway, it’s kinda become a personal ritual and every fall at the same time everyone here knows that I’m gonna disappear across the lake in a canoe for four days of living on the land all alone. Usually I paddle in for a whole day, find a good campsite, set up and just wander around out there, looking around, studying things. There’s a huge silence you discover when you get way beyond things like houses and roads and motors. It can be kinda scary at first but once you get used to it it’s like the most beautiful sound you ever heard and it fills up your insides until you think you’re gonna pass out from the pressure. A beautiful, roaring silence. A silence that’s full of everything. When your ears get used to it you start to hear things you never ever heard in your life. Things you never knew were there. Things like the whispers of old people’s voices when the wind blows through the trees. Little gurgles and chuckles like babies when the water from a creek rolls over the rocks. The almost holy sound of an eagle’s wings when it flaps above you, kinda like he’s breathing on you. Even something as quiet as your paddle moving through the water’s got a silky sound like the ripple of a lady’s shawl in a fancy dance. Far-off thunder sounding like a big drum in the sky and all the snaps and crackles, rubbings and scrapings that goes on in the bush at night when you can’t see anything. A thick blanket of sounds that tells you that darkness has a life too. A beautiful silence. The most beautiful music I ever heard. Full of all the notes of life and living we miss when we get away from it too long. The sounds that connect you to yourself and your life.
That’s why I go. On accounta when I get back and start moving around with people again I always got that silence to fall back on when things get strange. That silence gets to be a part of me by me going out there and being a part of it. I didn’t know that then, that first fall. All I knew was that there was a feeling telling me it was a good idea to go. I wanted to head for that area just beyond the other side of the lake where I was born. The traditional land my grampa trapped. The beginnings, I guess. Something inside me was telling me that I needed to go there. So I talked about it with Keeper and Jackie and Stanley’n Jane to see what they thought and everybody figured it was a good idea.
Course Ma was all worried when I told her. Being a bush woman all her life, Ma knows how tough it is to get by out there if you don’t know what you’re doing and how fast things can change out there when you don’t know how to read the land or the signs it gives you.
“Sure you wanna go alone, my boy?”
“Hey-yuh. Been spending lotsa time with Gilbert and Charlie this summer. Been watching how they do things and they showed me lots. I’ll be okay.”
“How far back you gonna go? Not far, I hope.”
“Kaween,” I said. “No. Not far. Other side of the lake, maybe one portage back, two maybe.”
“Holee. That’s far. Lotta wolf an’ bear around out there.”
“Hey-yuh. Lot.”
“You know your grampa’s old trapline land starts back there?”
“Hey-yuh. That’s a big part of the reason I wanna go there. Being home’s great, Ma, it really is, but I feel like if I don’t go there and see for myself where it all started for me, it’s not really gonna be like I’ve come home at all yet.”
“I know. Us we can only give you parta yourself back here. Help you learn about this place an’ us. Yourself. But’s a big parta you out there in that bush. Maybe now’s the time you went there an’ picked it up an’ brought it home.”
“Yeah, that’s what it kinda feels like. I don’t know why I gotta go there. I only know that I do.”
“Still, maybe Jackie oughta go with you first time? Good bush Indyun, that Jackie.”
“Kaween. Jackie’s one of the ones said I should go alone in the first place.”
“Really?”
“Hey-yuh. We both figure I’ll be okay. And I just kinda need some time alone for a while. To think. Get away from things. Fish. Walk around. Find something.”
She was looking at me kinda different by this time, nodding her head real slow like she does when she starts to understand or see something she missed the first time around. Her eyes were smiling now and she reached out to touch my cheek with one warm brown hand.
“Hey-yuh. I know. Your papa useta do the same thing every year too. Useta just get up real early, load up a canoe and paddle off by himself. Us we never knew where he was going, just that he was going off alone again. Never said much about it when he got back but he was always more, bigger kinda when he got back. You looked just like him there for a minute,” she said, stroking my cheek real soft. “Hey-yuh. Lot. So I guess it’s okay. Runs in the family, I guess.”
“Hey-yuh. Jackie said him’n Stanley do that too all the time. Says our uncles go off alone too lots. Jackie says it helps him. Gets him kinda peaceful inside.”
“Yeah. I know. Maybe you ask Keeper sometime to tell you about it. Been a parta what us Indyuns do for a long, long time.”
“So you’re not gonna worry?”
“Oh, I’m still gonna worry. Oh yes, me I’ll worry. But I know too that you gotta do it. You’ll learn lots out there you’re gonna need. Lots.”
“Wanna help me get ready then?”
“ ’Kay. How much you wanna take?”
“Not lots. Wanna travel light.”
“How light is light?”
“Light light. Just what I’m gonna need.”
“ ’Kay then. Only thing is … how you gonna get across that lake with a stove and stereo in that canoe?”
If you ever wanna get the idea of how it feels to fly, all you really gotta do is paddle a canoe alone across a northern lake when it’s calm. When there’s no wind and no waves it’s like moving through glass. You look over the sides and it’s like you’re suspended above everything. Water so clear you float over the rocks and boulders and logs on the bottom like an eagle over land, seeing the fish kinda scatter and picking out their favorite hiding places as you pass. If you look out over the front it’s like a magic curtain of cloud. Big shiny silver curtain that parts with the tip of the canoe, revealing the lake like you’ve never seen it. Things coming into view all slow and gradual, quiet and peaceful like you’re soaring over all of it. Paddle faster and it’s like you’re flapping your wings harder and the land passing beneath you moves by like a dream. It takes your breath away and really makes it hard to travel very far very fast. One of the rewards of being alone in a canoe early in the morning is that feeling of flying.
I discovered it that first morning that fall. It was one of them foggy mornings when the mist over the lake kinda makes all the sounds sharper and clearer. Me’n Ma could hear loons and herons across the bay and the yap of dogs from somewhere back in the bush like they were right beside us. We could hear Keeper coming even though that old guy moves pretty quiet in the bush, so we weren’t surprised when he appeared out of the fog.
“Ahnee,” he called from the top of the steps leading down to the dock behind Ma’s. “Minno gezheegut. It’s a good day. How’s things?”
“It’s okay, Keeper. You?” Ma said.
“Oh, not bad. Gonna miss that bacon, Garnet, you make sure and get back okay on accounta I need my breakfast chef.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “You’ll find some way of arranging an invitation to someone’s for breakfast. What’s that you got there?”
“Oh, this?” he said getting that surprised look on his face that he always does when he’s about to give something away. “Just somethin’ you’re gonna need out there. It’s not much.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Tobacco, white pieces of cloth, string. That’s all.”
“So what do I do with this?”
“Pray.”
“Pray?”
“Hey-yuh. Pray.”
“Lots,” he said, and we all laughed.
“No, really. What’s it for?”
“It’s for the land. You gotta give it back to the land. It’s an offering. Gratitude offering. Us we do this. Those of us tryin’ to live the Indyun way, we do this couple times a year. Called a tobacco offering. You take this tobacco and you wrap a small pinch of it in these little white pieces of cloth, tie ’em up with string. Make up a long circle of them.”
“Why?”
“Well, it’s on accounta us we sometimes forget what all we got to be thankful for. Forget that everythin’ comes from the land. Food, home, health, everythin’. So the old ones made this ceremony an’ taught everyone to do it. Don’t need to be an elder or a teacher to do it, it’s for everyone on accounta we all gotta show gratitude to stay humble.
“So you go out there. When you’re all set up, you find a place that feels kinda special. Maybe up on a big, high rock or at the foot of a bay. Smudge first. Pray. Then you take that tobacco an’ wrap it an’ tie it. When you do this you think of somethin’ or someone in your life you’re grateful for an’ say a prayer of thanks. Pray for their happiness, health and harmony. Then you think of somethin’ else an’ say the same kinda prayer. Keep on like that till you run outta prayers or tobacco. Then you take that circle of prayers you just made an’ you leave it in the branches of a tree or at the top of that big rock. Give those prayers back to the land an’ the spirits. Back where they came from.
“Might take you long time. Should. But you take as long as you need, give thanks for everythin’. When you’re done you’ll feel real good an’ you’ll treat everyone an’ everything with lotsa love an’ respect. It’s hard to be unloving an’ disrespectful towards things you prayed for.”
“Do you do this, Ma?” I asked.
“Hey-yuh. Couple times a year ever since I was a girl. It’s good. Keeps you real.”
“Anything else I gotta do?”
“No,” Keeper said. “Just pray for all you’re thankful for. It’ll be good for you an’ it’s time you got movin’ in this way now. ’Specially where you’re goin’. Findin’ that special place is not gonna be hard for you, I think.” He handed me the moose-hide pouch.
Ma gave me a big warm hug and looked real proud at me for a long time as I got ready to shove off. I remember feeling like I was about to discover something really big in my life and I couldn’t wait to find out what it was.
“ ’Kay then,” I said when I got seated in the canoe. “Be back in four nights, round sundown, I guess.”
“ ’Kay then,” Ma said. “Careful.”
“Hey-yuh. Will be.”
“Oh, an’ Garnet,” Keeper said, kinda mischievous. “You gotta try’n light a fire only usin’ two sticks when you’re out there.”
“I do?”
“Hey-yuh. It’s traditional.”
“Hey-yuh. Only for you we’re changin’ it this time.”
“Yeah?”
“Gonna let one of them sticks be a match!”
I looked back once I got a hundred yards or so out on the lake. They were still standing there with their arms around each other’s waist watching me head out across. It’s one of those Kodak moments, only these kind we keep in our hearts instead of some photo album. I got the idea that I knew what prayers those first two pouches were gonna be for.
As I paddled across that lake that morning, watching the sun start to burn the mist off the water, it was like seeing the light being born inside me again. By the time I reached the northern shore it was midmorning and I hugged the shoreline as I worked my way east to where I knew a portage to be. That’s when I discovered the feeling of flying. I was lost in it for miles. Those who say there’s no magic in the world anymore have never taken a solitary paddle on a northern lake in the morning. That feeling of being on a cushion of air was pure magic. Only the shadows of the trees and cliffs on the water kept me earthbound and by the time I reached the cairn of stones that marked the portage, my whole being felt like it could detach itself from earth and soar off somewhere into the wild blue of that morning sky. In a way, I guess, it did.
Watchin’ the boy headin’ off across that lake that mornin’ reminded me of myself one time. I must have been about twelve. Me’n the old man been hangin’ around together about a year by then. Me I’d learned lots but had a real long way to go yet. Old man told me it was time I went out to feel the power. That’s all. Go and feel the power. So we spent a coupla days gettin’ me all ready for this trip. It was gonna be four days. Wasn’t all romantic like them movies. Me I had a fishin’ pole, knife, rifle, food an’ blankets, just like the boy’s canoe. Them Westerns wanna make you think us Indyuns go out with nothin’ but a blanket and spend a long time fastin’ in the wilderness. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we do for special reasons like gettin’ ready for a big ceremony but most of the time we go out there all alone so we can greet the world again. That’s what it’s all about. Greetin’ the world again. See, us we get all busy with our lives. Gotta go here, go there, do this, do that, all the time. Get so busy we forget to look around an’ see the world. Forget to spend time with our best teacher. We start thinkin’ maybe we’re kinda important or too busy or both. So we go out there where no one else is around an’ we sit there. Most of the time that land’ll give you something to bring back. No big dreams or visions, although some get lucky an’ have them, but mostly you just see somethin’ in the land itself that’ll get you thinkin’ right again. Me, I forgot toilet paper one time an’ I seen a vision. Or at least I thought it was. Old man told me, he said, I only see somethin’ strange on accounta I was all constipated an’ my vision was blurry after four days. Hey, heh, heh. Funny guy, that Harold.
Anyway, I paddled long time, made a portage, went way to the end of this long lake I found. Made camp. First time I ever did things old way makin’ camp. Spruce boughs on the floor of the lean- to I made, sayin’ prayers for everythin’ I used, leavin’ little tobacco offerings by the trees an’ all. It was nice. Felt safe. Was real quiet there. Couldn’t find no sign of other people havin’ been there before an’ I felt kinda special. Like this was my spot on the earth kinda. And that’s where I stayed for four days. I still go there now an’ again an’ it’s still as quiet an’ untouched as it was way back then. Still get that feelin’ of bein’ connected again when I go there.
No big thing happened. Me I was lookin’ around for a big message or vision but nothin’ big happened. Except for the eagles of course. See, the old man told me about makin’ my tobacco offering too. First time I did it then. So that second morning I was way up on this big rock cliff, sittin’ on this ledge lookin’ way out over that lake an’ the land. Started makin’ those tobacco ties an’ prayin’ like I was told. Kinda got lost. Didn’t have no idea of time so I was surprised to look around finally an’ see it was midafternoon already. Kinda hungry, you know. I was thinkin’ about leavin’ an’ goin’ to eat, maybe come back next mornin’ to keep on with it. But I looked around an’ there was a big eagle sittin’ about four yards away from me on the top of this dead pine tree. Just sittin’ there lookin’ at me. Didn’t move. I looked the other way an’ there was another one sittin’ in the top of another tree about the same distance away. Me I figured they were a pair. Thought maybe I was close to their nest or somethin’ but they weren’t actin’ too upset so I figured it was just one of them crazy coincidences. Kept on watchin’ them watchin’ me for a long time. Finally kinda got too hungry so I got into sayin’ one last prayer to thank the Creator for sendin’ me up there an’ for the day I was having. When I looked up them eagles was gone.
Next day I’m up there early doing more ties an’ prayin’. Soon as I looked up from that first prayer them eagles were back in the same trees right up close to me. Hmmpfh. Kinda felt strange all of a sudden. Stayed there all day an’ every time I looked up from prayin’ them eagles were watchin’ me.
Third day same thing. Only when I got up there they weren’t around. Hmmpfh, I figured. Wasn’t no sign, just lucky. Waited about half an hour before I said that first prayer an’ them eagles weren’t anywhere to he seen. Looked up after that prayer an’ there they were, sittin’ there lookin’ at me. Really felt strange then. Stayed there again all day them birds. Never moved. Just sat there.
Finally that last mornin’ before I loaded up the canoe I went back up there to finish off. Had a big long circle of prayers to give back an’ I wanted to leave it there on that big rock cliff. Climbed up an’ no birds nowhere. Smudged up an’ prayed. Looked up an’ sure enough, there they were, same trees. By this time I’m okay with it. Me I figured I just made some friends. So, I said a big long prayer an’ offered my circle of prayers back to the land an’ the spirits. When I looked up them birds were gone. So I tossed that circle of prayers across an’ they landed near the top of that one tree where I saw the first eagle. Left it there an’ went back to get ready. Figured that was the end of it. Got all packed up an’ headed out in the canoe. Only got about ten feet off shore when I heard this sound an’ saw this shadow on the water. Looked up an’ seen them two eagles soarin’ around in a great big circle over my head. Way up there circlin’ around. Sat there in the canoe watchin’ them for a long time, screamin’ their eagle cries an’ circlin’ above me. Finally I decided I better get movin’ so I started to paddle again. But I heard this long cry an’ looked up real quick. One of them eagles was just tuckin’ his wings under and startin’ to dive right at the canoe. Hmmpfh. But me I wasn’t scared. Kept lookin’ up even when that bird started to power dive right at me. No fear. When he was about ten feet above the water he spread his wings real fast an’ flapped them four times. Stopped him right in midair above the canoe. Flapped four times an’ then screamed one last time an’ flew off. I sat there an’ watched the two of them disappear over the far end of the lake towards home. Felt real happy inside. The sound of them wings was like a blessing to me and I felt real happy inside. Boy, I sang all the way home. All this time I never forgot them two eagles. Sometimes even now when I feel low I think about the sound them wings made an’ I feel okay again. Been back there since an’ never seen them again either. Hmmpfh.
Told the old man all about it. He never said nothin’, just smiled an’ walked away. Hmmpfh. Crazy old coot I figured. Next day he come an’ brought me two eagle feathers tied all together with moose-hide thong. Said I earned them. Then he talked to me about them two sets of gifts we all carry. Told me them two eagles were signs to me about livin’ in balance with them two sets of gifts. Mother’s and the father’s. When I was prayin’ I was in balance an’ that’s why they came. Both sides comin’ together with my prayers. Man side and woman side. Sacred union comin’ together when I pray. Sacred union inside me. That’s what he told me. Said the reason they disappeared over the end of the lake leadin’ towards home was to remind me that I gotta take that teachin’ back into my life. Can’t just use it when I’m out there. I gotta live it. It’s gotta be parta of my livin’ all the time. Whenever I needed to find that balance for myself I just need to pray. That’s what them eagles were a sign of. So he gave me them two feathers tied together and told me keep them somewhere where I can see them all the time, to kinda remind me. Me I still got ’em. Hangin’ on the wall of my cabin. They’re a big sign of how I’m supposed to live. A big teaching I forgot for a long time. One I walked away from but awful glad I managed to walk back into again.
That’s what seein’ that boy headin’ out reminded me of. Me I just knew he was gonna come back with somethin’ that would fill up big corners of his insides. Somethin’ that was gonna be just for him. The land’s like that. Let yourself be a part of it an’ it’s always gonna give you back a part of yourself you never knew you had. Good friend that land. No wonder it’s brown. Heh, heh, heh.
Grampa’s trapline was about eighty miles long when it was running full tilt. The hydro dam had drowned most of it but the one end’s still there and that’s where I was headed. Jackie’d given me directions so I pretty much knew how to recognize the place where one of the old line shacks used to stand. I had to make two easy portages, cross one small lake and look for a place where a little creek dumped into the lake in a waterfall about five feet high. I found it by about midafternoon. It was beautiful. The little falls made a big wide pool in the end of one little bay that was surrounded by tall jack pines and there was a stretch of level ground all mossy and grassy where I would camp. Lot of cool shade and the pool was deep enough to swim in. Looked like someplace I could spend the rest of my life and never worry about anything. Kinda felt like home.
Watching my uncles had taught me pretty good how to set up a camp so doing that was really no problem and I had a good fire going by the time that sun started to go down. Guess you don’t have to be an Indian to appreciate a good fire in the middle of the wilderness. Keeper says there’s something in all of us human beings that’s attracted to a good fire. On accounta we all started out the same, he says. All of us were tribal people at one time in our history and sitting by fires late at night’s a big part of who we all are deep inside. That’s why fires are so popular, even in big fancy homes in the city. All of us got a secret yearning for our tribal past. The simple past, according to Keeper, and fires kinda spark that for us no matter who we are. Says that’s the way the problems of the world and between people gonna be solved someday. Once we remember about the common fires that burn in our pasts. Hmmpfh.
I sat there long into the night. Every now and then I’d lay some sweetgrass or cedar on a red-hot piece of wood and the smoke’d kinda calm me down when I got sort of freaked out by that feeling of being out of control. All around me was a huge land. Empty but full. In the middle of it all I felt pretty small and inside me there was a growing feeling that I was pretty powerless in the face of it. I imagined big bears, wolverines or cougars sneaking out of the bush and ending things for me and there wasn’t anything I could do. Or a big storm coming up and blowing away the canoe, drowning my fire and soaking my camp, or a sudden snowfall that would bury all the signs and directions. The land could pretty much do whatever it wanted and I couldn’t do a thing. Guess that’s really when I woke up to the idea of where the real power in this world is. It was in that lake, the trees, the rocks, wind, sky and ground. Me I was just there trying to find my part in it. By the time I hit my bed I fell into a deep sleep and never moved until morning.
And what a morning. The sun was just coming up and the purple light was fading off, revealing mist on the bay and the circles of rising fish. There was more birds in the trees than I ever heard before and just beyond the mouth of the bay was a beaver hauling a long branch of poplar to his den somewhere further down the shoreline. The long dwindling Y in the water sent ripples right up to where my camp was. By the time I got the fire stoked up and going again the sun was completely up.
For me, breakfast in the bush is the greatest thing in the world. There’s nothing quite like that first big slug of campfire coffee and the smell of bacon and eggs against the cold crispness of the air. I fished awhile and hooked a nice little pickerel from the pool and ate him up right away too. When I finished I remembered what Keeper’d told me and left a small pinch of tobacco by the water’s edge as thanks for the food. It felt kinda nice doing that.
According to Jackie the old cabin would be somewhere back in the bush to the east of where I was sitting now, near another small bay like this on a smaller lake. Probably wouldn’t be too much left of it after all these years and I’d have to satisfy myself with a few old timbers. Didn’t matter. I just needed to see the place. All those years of wandering around shopping for a story for myself, some hook to hang my life on, had finally brought me here to where it all started. Somewhere back in those trees was the history I never had. Most people got them photo albums got pictures of their past. Me I never had that. Seen some snapshots that Ma’n Jane kept but there weren’t any of those days when it all started for this little flock of Ravens. I kinda needed to have one of them Kodak moments for myself right back here in the bush. Needed to touch a part of myself I never knew was there. I felt like one of them salmon that’s gotta go back upriver to where it was hatched after a long time at sea. I was at sea a long time myself. The only difference being that the salmon’s gotta go back so it can die. Me I had to come back so I could live.
I grabbed a fishing pole and knife, threw a small pack on my back with the moose-hide pouch and some food, matches and fishing hooks and headed eastward into the bush.
There’s a moment in this life that I love every time it happens. It’s that moment when you step into the bush and feel it close itself behind you. Kinda like the door to a favorite room. Only this room’s the biggest one in the world and it’s full of everything you want around you. You look straight ahead of you at that moment and all you can see is the power of the rough and tangle. Something as important as direction gets all erased by the power of nature, the land expressing itself. The rough and tangle. You take a hundred steps and stop. In every direction there’s only the law of the land. Those areas where there are no paths, no blazes on trees, no sound of roads or motors to comfort your city senses and no end to it all, are those places where that magic happens. The door to nature’s room closing behind you. I love it more than anything these days and it started for me that morning. Funny that I always felt like I was being threatened on the streets of them cities even though I thought of them as home all the time. Surrounded by all the comforts of civilization, all the so-called safety, and I still always felt threatened. But that morning, feeling that door close behind me, knowing there probably wasn’t another human being for miles and miles, no one knowing for sure where I was, no gun, no outside-world security, felt like the safest place in the world to me.
Something caught my attention and I started to move. It wasn’t much. Just a shadow through the trees, but I started off in that direction looking behind me for a latch on where I came in. I climbed a small rise all strewn with fallen logs and found myself looking at all the little plants that were growing in the shadows. Snakeberries. Mint. The small ferns the old people used to strip and tear long shreds off for weaving and sewing. I started to see things that I remembered the uses for, the tea plants, the mosses, the bark of trees. As I moved through that bush I felt like I knew my way around. It was strange. Not so much like I knew where I was going, because at that time I didn’t, but more like I knew what was growing around me, from the names of trees to the places where I knew I could look for skunk cabbage and berries. It was an eerie kinda feeling.
All through that morning I moved through that bush and that feeling of knowing kept getting stronger and stronger. I picked out the almost invisible trails where the deer move. Rabbit runs. I identified bear sign, fox sign, felt the change in direction of the wind on my cheek and looked up to check it with the way the branches were moving. When I came to another small bay I knew where I was gonna be able to catch fish by the shadows on the water, knew the beaver slides, where the muskrat den should be, all of it just by looking from the edge of the bush. It was strange but comforting at the same time. This was the bay I was looking for.
I sat down and pulled the moose-hide pouch out of my pack and offered a pinch of tobacco to the land for allowing me to travel safely through it and for getting me here. I proved the fishing theory by pulling out two big jackfish with a couple of grubs I found under an old log. Then it was lunch and a nice short nap in the sun by the edge of the water. Sleep, dreamless and easy.
I found the cabin without any problem. It was sitting back of the bay about thirty yards, in the shade of two really big birch trees. Calling it a cabin’s doing it a favor. It was only a crumple of rotted logs but the outline was still there in that heap. There was grass and small saplings growing up through the middle of it all and no real sign of a trail leading up to it or away from it, but it was the cabin, all right. My heart told me that. I sat down against one of them big birch trees and stared at it for a long, long time.
There’s no word in either Ojibway or English that describes the feelings that were flowing through me that afternoon. Maybe flowing’s the best word of all. I was sitting there like a big open channel on the water when them waves are pouring over it, rolling and rolling and rolling. They’re moving so fast on the top that they churn up things that’ve been resting down there a long long time. That’s how it felt. Churning. Old feelings, images and dreams all churned up into motion again as I sat there leaning on that old birch tree. I closed my eyes real tight and I imagined that I could hear four small children running and playing in the shadows. The voices of adults laughing and yelling for them kids. My name. Garnet. Garnet. Peen-dig-en. Peen-dig-en, Garnet. Come in. Come in. I imagined I could see the faces of those who I would never know in this reality. My grampa. Long gray braids and deep-set eyes in a wrinkled, weathered face of many seasons. My granny. Kerchief framing another wrinkled face with a gap-toothed grin and eyes the deep, deep brown of the land. And my father. John Mukwa. A face like mine. Big broad cheekbones with curlicues of laughter at the edges and a quiet strength born of the land and all its motions. A bush man’s face.
I could hear their voices there. The ghosts of voices that filled those shriveled timbers with love and hope and happiness. The voices of an Ojibway family alive forever in a time beyond what the world could do and did not so far from then. Voices from a history that got removed. A past that never got the chance to shine in me. A glittering, magic past that was being resurrected right there in the crumpled heap of an old cabin that had given itself back to the land a long time ago. It was part of me. And there in those rotted lengths of mossy, gray-black timbers was the thing I’d been searching for all my life. The hook to hang my life on. The hook that hung on the back of a cabin door amidst the rough and tangle of the land, the past, the heritage that was my home, my future and mine alone forever. I cried.
And as those tears swept my face I offered a pinch of tobacco to the skeleton of the cabin that had become the bones of my life, to the power of the land for keeping it here, to the Creator of all things for his plan and I knew that there would be no need to search for that special place to offer my circle of prayers. And I knew that when it was time to leave this place, it would be sacred land. Sacred land. To carry it in my heart forever was my responsibility, my destiny and my dream. The land, you see, is a feeling.
I beached the canoe and moved all my things across to the site of the cabin. It took the better part of the rest of that second day and all the while moving through the bush I couldn’t shake that feeling of knowing my way around it all. Funny. Kinda like déjà vu but stronger. A memory you carry in the hands and feet. Turned out that little bay was full of fish and supper was a virtual feast of pickerel and jackfish. I made my first open-fire bannock beside that bay and felt like the great chef of the outdoors by the time I was finished. I had a few hours before sundown so I figured I’d walk around in the bush for a while and see if I could remember anything about that early life of mine.
It was easy to see why my grampa would’ve picked this spot for a cabin on the trapline. Water was good and fresh, lots of fish and instead of being real marshy and full of mosquitoes, this was one of them pothole lakes the glaciers made with a shoreline of trees and rock. Little streams flowed into it from out of the back country and I could see the notch in the shoreline a ways off that marked the runoff stream. All around it were hills. Not the big unclimbable hills this country’s full of but smaller rolling hills that were covered in trees and thick acres of berry patch. Meant there’d be a lot of bears around but I wasn’t worried about them. Around here bears still act like bears. Not like them bears out west that get fed from cars and campsites all the time and got more and more bold as the years went by. These bears here still gotta lotta respect for humans and pretty much keep their distance. I saw all that from the hill back of the camp I made by the cabin. Saw the big thickets of trees where the deer would lie in the daytime and saw stretches of shoreline that would make perfect watering places for them if I had a mind or a gun to hunt them with. All around me I could see signs of life. Knew there were foxes, raccoons, porcupine, skunk and wolf trotting around this area regular. Knew that from the signs they left on the ground and from somewhere inside me that I couldn’t identify then. Grampa knew it too and that’s why he picked this place for a line cabin on the trapline.
That in itself was strange. I’d been city-raised mostly. My way of seeing and knowing was city. I’d learned a lot from my family since I’d been back but as this was the first time I’d ever really been in the boonies it was strange that I knew how to read the country like I was doing. Now there’s lotsa people walking around that when you ask them how come they know so much about living in the bush and all, they’ll say on accounta I’m an Indian, but in my case this wasn’t true. Sure, I’m an Ojibway, but back then I sure didn’t have a whole lotta knowledge about what that meant. More than what I did when I first got here but I still had lots to learn. I knew enough to get by for a few days alone long as I brought most of what I needed with me, but I knew I couldn’t go it alone for long empty-handed. But there I was reading the land and knowing what it would take to survive. It was the first thing I was gonna ask Keeper about when I got home.
If there were any physical signs of my childhood around there, the land had pretty much taken them back by then. I wandered around for an hour or so and then headed back to the cabin. The shadows were getting long by then and it was time to leave the land to the creatures of the night. I made a pot of tea and settled back to relax and think this day over. My four days were half over already. I kinda wished I could stay longer but I knew if me’n that canoe didn’t appear on White Dog Lake by sundown of the fourth day there was gonna be a whole bush full of Ojibways tracking me down real quick. Comforting to know that really.
That’s when I remembered about the tobacco ties. I piled a few logs on top of each other and leaned back against them while I opened the pouch. There was a big pile of loose tobacco, about three dozen square little pieces of white cloth and a spool of white thread. If I took about a fingernail’s worth of tobacco it’d fit into one of them pieces of cloth. Then I could just wrap the ends tight with the thread and go on to the next one. That part was easy. The hard part was gonna be the praying.
I didn’t wanna go into it just because Keeper said it was something I oughta be doing. I didn’t wanna go into it just because I figured it was Indian to be doing this either. And I sure didn’t wanna go into it without believing in what I was gonna do. Especially here by the old cabin.
So I sat there again long into the night. I watched them stars wheel around the deep bowl of the universe and the moon skate across it in a big arc. I listened to the land around me. I could hear the quick little movements of the smaller animals drawn by the shiny light of the fire and from further off the howl of wolves saluting that moon. Every now and then a fish would jump in the bay and the splash would echo over the lake. Me I sat there by that fire listening and thinking. Listening and thinking. Feeling safe in this full and empty land with that blanket of darkness covering all of it. Feeling safe beside the remains of this cabin that was full of my history. Feeling safe beside this fire that burned like Ojibway fires had been burning for thousands of years. Feeling safe because of that growing sense inside me that I was really a part of all of it. Really a part of it. And the longer I sat there listening and thinking the more I started to feel and believe that it was a part of me too. The heartbeat of the land beating inside my chest. That feeling of gratitude was burning as warm and bright as that fire by the time my head fell against my chest and I collapsed into the land of dreams to run with the wolves across that full and empty land that had become my home.
It was a dream like any other. I was running. Long, loping strides that floated me over the land. My legs felt free of anything as restricting as muscle and it was like I had wings. I ran and ran and ran, seeing the trees and rocks and lakes passing by like those movies you see where they got the camera latched onto the belly of a plane flying low. Running. Effortlessly running. Bodiless almost. Then suddenly I was in a canoe. I was standing up and paddling really slow around a big point of land. The point of land was nothing but a huge rock cliff. There were trees growing out of the face of that cliff like you see around here all the time. The bigger ones were dying from the top on down but the smaller ones were still a bright green and thick with branches. I paddled real slow and squinted to look at the sun shining on the face of that calm water.
As I rounded the curve of that point there were two big skinny jack pines standing there against that cliff. I stopped paddling to look at them. Suddenly, I noticed there were two eagles there. One at the top of each of those trees. They were looking at me. Not moving just looking. I watched them watching me for a long time and the canoe drifted in and bumped against the shore. There wasn’t any fear, not in me and not in them birds. We just watched each other. There was a big silence like you always feel in dreams and I could feel the wind against my cheek while I watched them birds.
Just as my neck was beginning to ache from all that looking up they started to move. First one then the other. Not moving like they were gonna fly away, not like that. One of them started shrugging its shoulders around. Then the other. Kinda bouncing their shoulders around. Bouncing them forward and back. Pretty soon they were moving together, in rhythm. Shoulders moving forward and back and their heads bobbing up and down, side to side too. I watched from the canoe in that thick silence of dreams.
All of a sudden they both kinda popped offa the tops of those pine trees. Jumped. They spread their wings and drifted down to the ground in big sweeping circles, coming close together then circling further apart and then coming close together again until they landed on the ground. When they landed they kept up that shrugging and head bobbing with their wings still spread apart. Their backs were towards me when they landed but as they turned to face me I could see that they weren’t eagles any longer. They were an old man and an old woman. On their arms they wore the wings of eagles and on their heads bonnets of eagle feathers that hung down over their eyes. They wore ceremonial costumes and as they danced they kept on watching me. They danced for a very short time and then when they stopped they turned to look at me one last time. They looked right into my eyes, smiled, nodded. When they leaped into the sky they were birds again and I watched them as they slowly disappeared over the far end of the lake. I could hear the soft flap, flap of their wings against the sky and it was that sound that woke me. When I opened my eyes it wasn’t to the wings of eagles but to the soft lapping of the waves against the shore. The water curling over the rocks. Flap, flap, flap.
There’s those that call us Indians the people of the dream. That’s on accounta we spenda lotta time and energy seeking vision. Back in the old traditional times the old ones would send young guys like me out on a four-day fast in the hills. No food, no fire, maybe a little water. They’d sit out there and pray and pray and pray. Sometimes they’d be lucky enough to be blessed with a vision sent to them by the Creator or the ancestors in the spirit world. That vision could be just about anything and was meant to be a sacred and private thing for the seeker. Gave a direction for their life. Called it a vision quest. Nowadays with the traditional ways getting left behind more and more there’s not so many going out on vision quests as there used to be. Fact, when you hear about it these days it’s a pretty special thing. Anyway, we Indians spent a lot of time seeking dreams and visions to give us direction and strength. One of the things the elders tell you nowadays is to try real hard to remember all your dreams, write them down even to help you. Remember them and talk them over with an elder to try and figure out what they’re telling you if you can’t figure them out yourself. Us we put a lot of stock in dreams. This dream of mine was powerful and I’d be talking to Keeper about it as soon as I got home. In the meantime I was sure one humble kinda guy by the time I got to moving around that third morning.
After another good breakfast of fresh fish, bannock and good old-fashioned Ojibway bush tea I started making those tobacco offerings. It was sunny and still that morning. As I sat there in the shade of those big birch trees, staring at the remains of that old cabin, I could hear the orchestra of birds all around me. Sat there for a long time with my eyes closed listening to the sounds of creation shrugging its shoulders and moving back into life again. Was nice. Left me feeling really peaceful and as I set out all the parts of that little ceremony there were no ragged edges in my belly.
This was gonna be the first time I ever did anything without Keeper. All the time I’d been home he’d been directing me and giving me all the background to the things I was doing. My guide like he says all the time. Now, Keeper was a day’s paddle away and I was about to do something important on my own and I wanted it to be done right. For Keeper and for myself.
I found a thick piece of smoldering wood in the fire and set it down in front of me. This would be my smudging stick. I took a bit of dried cedar and a little twist of moss and placed them on the hot end of that stick. When the smoke started curling up off it I began smoothing it over my head with my open hands. Keeper’n me smooth that smoke over our heads, shoulders and body four times when we smudge. He says it’s on accounta four’s a strong traditional number and on accounta when we smudge we’re purifying ourselves and we gotta purify all of us. Meant our mind, body, spirit and emotion. Get centered. Each pass of that smoke was a purifying pass over one of them areas. It worked. I always feel more centered and positive when I smudge.
“Our bodies are the Creator’s house,” Keeper said one day when we first started. “It’s his house an’ us we’re only livin’ in it for a while. Got everythin’ we need to survive in this world in that house with us. Thoughts, muscle, yearnin’s an’ feelin’s. Mind, body, spirit an’ emotions. Got it all in that house we’re given to live in.
“Us we gotta take care of it. Clean it so we can live good. That’s why we smudge every day. Clean that house. Purify all of it so we can live in a good way.”
Keeper says when the ancestors in the spirit world smell that smoke it makes them happy on accounta they know that someone in this reality’s a believer and trying to live in a good way. They remember to watch over us and protect us. And that smoke as it drifts up and up and up and finally disappears is carrying our prayers into the mystery where the Creator can hear them. According to Keeper, praying’s as much a part of being Indian as breathing. Gotta do both to live, he says.
So I smudged up real good that morning and then sat back with my eyes closed trying to feel my breathing. When we do that we reconnect to the sound of our heartbeat. We can feel that boom-boom boom-boom boom-boom in the center of ourselves and when we can feel that, we can feel the heartbeat of life all around us. Tells us we’re never alone and that we’re part of everything. Kinda hard to feel lonely, lost or afraid when you can feel part of everything around you. Learning that was one of the biggest things I learned from Keeper. That way we’re always gonna feel at home in the house we were given to live in. Hmmpfh.
When I opened my eyes I felt ready to start. I lined up everything by my crossed knees and started thinking about all the things I was grateful for. I remembered what Keeper said about this one day when we were walking in the bush. He pointed all around us in a big sweeping motion and nodding his head like he does.
“Us we think funny lots,” he said. “Think we’re bein’ thankful for all the right things. Think we’re doin’ right by bein’ grateful for our home an’ health an’ family. It’s okay. It’s right to be that way about them things. But there’s more. Just gotta learn to use our eyes different and we see lots to be grateful for. Lots. Gotta look around, really try’n see this world around you. Do that you see lots you’re gonna be thankful for an accounta you’re gonna see lots that taught you something sometime. That’s what this gratefulness is all about. Not just for now. Grateful for all your life.”
So I started thinking back as far as I could. Started sending my mind and my eyes back through my life, trying to see things I hadn’t looked at in years. Trying to find the gratitude for things happening the way they did. Sat there with a little mound of tobacco in my hand and thought about everything. Never ever thought there’d be a day when I’d see myself saying a prayer of thanks for living the kinda life I’d led but there I was that day wrapping tobacco in little pouches and tying them off with thread, saying thanks for the teachings. Thought about them schoolyards, the teasing, the fighting, the lost feelings. Thought about the streets and how grateful I was to have survived out there. Thought about the pen and how grateful I was to not have to be there anymore and for coming through that kinda whole too. Lonnie and Delma and faces of people I met that I gave up thinking about a long time ago came up in my mind and I tied up my gratitude for them and what they taught me in a little pouch that I was gonna offer back to the land that day. I sat there for a long, long time, thinking, crying sometimes and being grateful. When I lifted up my eyes finally the sun was telling me it was midafternoon. I had quite a long string of prayers already but there were more waiting to be born inside me. Gotta be strong to give birth I figured, so I broke for lunch and a walk.
By the time I got back it had to be about four-thirty. I recall these days how quiet it all seemed around that old cabin that day. Kinda like ev’rything around me was joining in on the process.
I sat back down in the shade of them trees and smudged and centered myself again. This time I didn’t have to travel so far back in things. I thought about coming home and all the people I’d met, things I’d learned, seen and done, and being grateful for all of that came real easy. Then I started looking around me at the trees, water and animals I knew were there but couldn’t see. Thought about the land itself, the air, the rocks, earth and sky. Everything went into little pouches and onto that length of thread that was getting longer than I ever expected it to be when I started out. Just about the time I was thinking about the cabin and the grandparents I never got to meet was when I ran out of tobacco. I said a good long prayer for them away and then gathered everything up to go look for a place to offer back my circle of prayers.
Just then I heard that familiar cry of an eagle. When I looked up I saw one sitting at the top of a big jack pine across the bay. Must have been close to suppertime for him and he was scanning the open water for rising fish. When I moved to the edge of the water that bird just looked over at me standing there with my long circle of prayers. We watched each other for a minute or two and then he cried out again and flew off, crying that eagle song. I started walking around the bay to the tree where that bird had been sitting. Kinda like in my dream, I thought, except there was only one of them.
When I got to the tree I sat down at its base and breathed in and out real deep and long for a few minutes. When I felt right I offered up a prayer of thanks for being able to come out here and do this thing and for the opportunity to see the place where I’d lived when I was a baby. I asked for a part of this place to always travel with me so I could remember that I always had a home and I wouldn’t have to leave anywhere again in search of it. I prayed for Keeper and my family and asked to be taken home to them safe and sound in the morning. Then I started to climb. I climbed up that tree until the branches started to get a little thin to hold me. I reached out to put that circle of prayers on a higher branch and I came face to face with a big eagle feather just sitting there nestled in the branches. After I made sure that prayer circle was secure I picked up that feather and held it in my teeth as I scampered down that tree. When I hit the ground I sat down again to have a look at it.
It was beautiful. That eagle must have left it when it flew off. Right then and there it didn’t really matter where it came from. Eagle feathers are a real honor with us Indians and here I was being offered one by the bird itself. I held it in my hands and looked it over really good, feeling a feeling kinda like honor itself for the first time in my life. Honor and humility all rolled up in one big, shiny, swell-in-the-chest package.
“Us we give feathers when someone’s done somethin’ needs honorin’,” Keeper said one time. “Someone shows courage, faith, humility, love, anythin’ like that. Any one of them spiritual qualities meant to help people, we give them a feather. It’s a big thing. Somethin’ you gotta earn. Earn by livin’ right and good.”
I thought about that all the way back to the cabin. Thought about how even though I felt kinda afraid when I first got out here that I managed to stay anyway. And about how good I felt about following directions and doing this tobacco offering in a good way. Thought about how for the first time in my life I’d done something really important just for the opportunity to do it and learn. Thought about how it felt to be out here, to be a part of it.
The northern lights were dancing like crazy as I lay there by my little fire. In the morning I would be heading home and right then and right there was when the word “home” began to mean more to me than just four walls and a door. Meant everything around me and in me. Something I could take with me wherever I went, like the eagle feather I clutched to my chest while I slipped away again into the land of dreams.
Wanted to tell you why it’s so important that the boy go out there by himself. Me I knew that he was ready. Ready not like being able to live out there for four days but ready to face the feelin’s he was gonna have bein’ there at that cabin. Face them with humility an’ respect. Face them for growth. That’s the way we been teachin’ young people for long, long time. Stick with ’em and know when they’re ready for more learnin’ and ready for findin’ their own way too. It’s the same at twenty-six as it is at twelve. You gotta be ready. If you’re not ready you won’t learn. Simple as that. You gotta be willlin’ too.
Anyway, it was his time. The tobacco offerin’s pretty much an individual thing. No one can tell you what you gotta be grateful for on accounta no one really knows your history but you. How things touched you. So you go out there an’ pray your own prayers for your own lessons in life. It’s a good thing. Makes you walk back over your own territory. Go back down some trails maybe you forgot. Forgot on purpose even sometimes. Him he’d been learnin’ real good and it was time he took that walk back through his life. See, bein’ grateful’s hard when the hurtin’s fresh or when the scars have been on the wound a long time. But he worked hard that first year he was here an’ found stronger parts of himself. He wouldn’t fall apart inside by goin’ back there. Was gonna be able to see the teachin’s. See ’em and be grateful for ’em. It was his time.
An’ that tobacco offerin’s the way we prepare people for learnin’ more. More about ceremony an’ ritual. You go alone out there, don’t matter how old or young you are, go alone out there when you’re not used to it an’ you’re gonna feel real humble real soon. Gonna find where the real power in this world is at. Gonna see you ain’t that much in the scheme of things. Us we needed that humble feelin’ workin’ in us all the time and out there’s where you find it. So we send people out there to find the humility an’ respect they’re gonna need to appreciate ceremony. Get that an’ ceremony’s gonna always mean more. Teach you more.
Anyway, the boy needed to learn that on accounta he was gonna be led to more. Go in deeper. So headin’ out was good timin’ and an all-around good idea.
See, that’s the way. It’s the teaching way we been usin’ for our young people forever. Start ’em off learnin’ respect and humility. Good base for learnin’ and workin’ as a member of the band. Old man told me he said, us we gotta learn that way, gotta learn that what we do touches everybody, every action, every move touches everybody. Then he told me about fire.
Back in the real old days, long before people started markin’ human time, Anishanabe had firekeepers. The firekeeper’s duty was to keep embers from the campfires alive so they could start another one when they needed it if the people were movin’ around. Kept ’em in big moss bags. Moss was cool an’ damp so it wouldn’t burn but was just dry enough for the embers to keep smolderin’ all day long. Soon as they come to a campin’ place the firekeeper started cookin’ fires and warmin’ fires from those embers. Got them goin’ right away. Back then it was real big thing. Time went by and our people learned to capture the secret of fire. Learned how to start ’em from scratch in a lotta different ways, under all kinds of conditions. So the firekeepers kinda got lost in that learnin’. But the old ones just knew there was big teachin’s in that old firekeeper way. So they started lookin’ for a way to use it.
Found it in the fire. They saw how the people loved sittin’ around them fires tellin’ stories and laughin’ together. Saw the young ones at the edges of them fires takin’ it all in too. Saw ’em tryin’ to be a part of it. So they started teachin’ them about fire. They told those young ones back then about them old firekeepers an’ how important their job was to the people at one time. Said firekeepin’ was a big tradition an’ real important. Told them how the old ones in camp needed them fires to keep their bones warm an’ how if there was no fire the people couldn’t eat that day. Told ’em how fire was as big as huntin’ in our way. Make a good fire you’re takin’ care of the people same as hunters are, they told them kids. Big thing, that fire.
Well pretty soon, kids bein’ kids and all, they started lookin’ at that fire different. Started wantin’ to be the ones to start ’em. So the old ones started teachin’ ’em how to make good fires. Smokeless fires and big roarin’ winter fires. Pretty soon them kids were takin’ real big pride in their firemakin’ skills. Kinda pushin’ each other to learn it better. Found big honor in that simple thing. They learned how to make good fire because they learned to hunt. All through that they were learnin’ how every action touches everybody. Respect. Learnin’ that there’s big honor in takin’ care of people. Humility. Learnin’ that bein’ responsible starts with the simple things and leads up to the bigger ones. All the same rules but it starts with the simple.
So they started teachin’ them all that by teachin’ ’em to make campfires. Kids would be runnin’ around gatherin’ wood as soon as it got to be that time of day again. Started learnin’ real young about workin’ together for the benefit of the people. Was a big lesson they were gonna need forever. An’ that’s how we been teachin’ our kids ever since. Same with the boy. Just a big kid him. Came here as innocent of our ways as them other kids. So I started him off the same way an’ this tobacco offerin’ was somethin’ he had to do in order to learn more. Simple lessons first.
See, our way’s simple. Us we see power in everythin’ except ourselves. Them trees an’ rocks an’ things are all blessed with power comin’ in. Us we gotta look for it. So we go to the land an’ see where the real power is. Get humble an’ respectful in the middle of it all. Pray’n ask for help. It’s the start of findin’ your own power. Seein’ you got none but knowin’ where to go to connect up to it. Simple, eh? If you ain’t got no power you gotta connect up to the power source. Plug in. Hmmpfh. Don’t ask me where that came from. Me I can’t even plug in at home. Some of us Indyuns ain’t never gonna have no power on accounta the hydro lines don’t reach that far. Heh, heh, heh.
That’s why me I say the land is a feelin’. You go out there and stand in the middle of it an’ you’re gonna feel it. You’re gonna feel it. That’s why all them city people are always headin’ to the country every chance they get. Somethin’ deep inside ’em’s hungry for that feelin’. Lost it lots of them and want it back. Us we got it all the time. Learn it early. Keep it inside us. Then no matter where we go we always got that feelin’ in us. City, town, don’t matter. We got that connected-up feelin’ workin’ inside us. That feelin’ of power that we looked for an’ found.
They were waiting around on the dock trying to look casual when I started back across White Dog Lake. I made real good time coming back so it was about an hour before sundown but they were still hanging around trying not to look like they were scanning the lake every minute or so. Keeper’n Ma, my brothers and sister, Gilbert, Charlie and even old Doc Tacknyk were crowded onto that little dock. By the time I reached them they were all smiles.
“Couldn’t tell if it was you or not,” my uncle Charlie was saying. “Kinda got skinny out there. Maybe we shoulda give you a couple of hand grenades.”
“What the hell for?” I asked.
“Easier huntin’,” he said, to wild laughter all around.
“Doesn’t look all too malnourished to me,” Doc said, reaching down to ease the canoe against the dock. “Must have been the ten pounds of groceries he carried in with him!”
“Yeah, amazin’ how long that frozen fish stays froze,” my uncle Charlie said, winking at me as he reached for my pack.
“Didn’t have no frozen fish,” Ma said, kinda pouty-like. “My boy knows where to camp to have regular food all the time, that’s all. Where’d you set up anyway, my boy? Downtown Minaki?”
Everyone laughed but I could tell they were all pretty relieved that I’d made it back on time and okay. Keeper was grinning away and letting the family pretty much have their greetings first and he winked at me too while Jane grabbed me up in another of her big wraparound hugs.
“Prouda ya, bro’,” she said and wiped a little tear from her eye.
“Yep. Bagga antlers. Lookin’ pretty jake,” Jackie said before hugging me too.
I asked, “What’s jake?”
“Jake’s the cool, hip, together, you know?” Stanley said, rubbing his hand through my hair. “Lookin’ jake’s the way you wanna look when you go out on the town. Except maybe right now you’d consider havin’ a bath before you hit town tonight!”
“Hmmpfh,” Ma said, hugging me and giving me a real big kiss on the cheek. “Nuffa this talk. Boy could use hot tea, stew an’ bannock, an’ me I got some goin’ right now.”
We laughed and walked into Ma’s where a big pot of stew was simmering on the stove and a bannock the size of a seat cushion was waiting on the table. There wasn’t much talk for a while as we all filled up bowls and headed out to where Jackie had a fire going right away. As I looked around at those people I sure was glad to be home and real grateful to have been met by all of them.
“Did ya find it?” Jackie asked, over the rim of his teacup.
“Hey-yuh. Right where you said it would be.”
“Kaween. Down. Not much left anymore really. Just a big pile of rotted logs with trees and stuff growing up out of it.”
“Figgers.”
“Someday I wanna go there too me,” Ma said, looking out across the lake towards that first portage. “Someday maybe you take me there, my boy?”
“Sure, Ma. I’ll be back there lots.”
“How did it feel, Garnet, being away off by yourself for the first time?” Doc Tacknyk asked. “I know the first time I was out there alone I felt very intimidated.”
“Yeah. Me too at first. That first night felt like I was a thousand miles away from anybody. After that though it was okay. Felt like home.”
“Was your home,” Uncle Charlie said. “Long time ago when you were just crawlin’ around. Couldn’t even talk then. Just howled lots you.”
“Hey-yuh,” said my uncle Joe through a big mouthful of stew and bannock. “Always gonna be Raven land there. Our footprints all over that area. Now yours are there too. It’s your home again now.”
“Well, that’s how it felt, all right. Like I’d been there not all that long ago. In fact, I could almost swear that I knew where I was going all the time. Like I knew what and where everything was. Weird.”
“Not weird,” Ma said. “Not weird. First thing you learned from your grampa an’ your father was that land.”
I sat down on a log with Jane, who put her arm around me and her head against my chest. Stanley and Jackie came across and sat down there too looking at Ma, who was sitting on her favorite stump with a big mug of tea.
“First present you ever got from them two was the land, my boy. See, us we were always fightin’ over who was gonna take care of you when you were still a carryin’-around baby. Us women, we wanted to be around you all the time, breastfeedin’ an all that. Me’n your granny’n your aunties we wanted you close. But them two wanted you around ’em too. So we’d all the time be fightin’ over who got to take care of you for the day. Lotta the time they won out.
“Your grampa or your dad’d strap you to their chest an’ head off into the bush to work the line. You’d be all wrapped up warm’n safe in that cradleboard an’ they’d walk around all day with you on their chest. All that time they were walkin’ through that bush they’d be talkin’ to you even though you were so small and couldn’t understand nothin’. Still they talked to you.
“When they seen a bear in the bush they’d tell you his name. Mukwa. Then they’d tell you all about that mukwa. Where he went, what he done all day, what he liked to eat’n where you should look for him. Everythin’. An’ they’d call your name out to that bear too before he disappeared. They’d say, this is my son. His name’s Garnet Raven an’ he’s Anishanabe. Then they’d tell you that the bear was your brother and you didn’t have to be afraid of him. Same thing with fox, raccoon, weasel. Introduced you to each other. Same thing with water, tree, rock, fish, everythin’ out there. Plants, insects, all of it. Told you all of it was your relative an’ the land was always gonna be your home.
“Introduced you to the world that way, my boy. Told you everythin’ an’ introduced you to all of it. So that whenever you went there anytime in your life, you’d never feel like a stranger. Days’n days they carried you around till you met everythin’. They introduced you to the world. Gave it to you as a gift.
“But even though you were too young to understand, somewhere inside you it stuck. Never went away all this time. Reason you could see all that’n know all about it. Same with all you kids. That’s the way we did things back then. It’s our tradition. Introduce you to the world. It’s our way.”
No one said a word for the longest time. Right then and right there I chose to believe it and believe that it took an awful lotta love for someone to take the time to offer the world as a gift. To take you around and introduce you to it all. Explain it, give it size, give it direction. And my heart swelled knowing I was loved that much. Still was too, judging by the way everyone was looking at me.
“Wow,” said Jane. “I didn’t know that, Ma. That’s really cool.”
“Cool ain’t the word, sister,” Stanley said. “Strong maybe.”
“Dad told me about it one time,” Jackie said, looking up at the sky. “Told me it was what I should do one day if I ever had any kids of my own. Told me it was my responsibility.”
“That’s right,” Keeper said really quietly, “that’s right. It’s your responsibility. First, though, it’s your responsibility to get to know that world yourself. Reach out, touch it, feel it, get to know it, be a part of it. Find yourself in it. Find it in you. The only time you can give it away’s when it’s part of you. That’s what our way’s all about. Feelin’ that universe inside and givin’ it to someone else sometime.”
“That’s very beautiful,” Doc Tacknyk said, “and very, very true. Makes me wish I was an Indian.”
“Hmmpfh,” Keeper said. “Some Indyun you’d make. First time we had you out to smoke fish you had to ask me which end you were supposed to light!”
We all laughed. As I sat there on that log with my brothers and sister, looking across at the fire throwing big shadows on the face of our mother, I thought of how something that started way back in that bush a long time ago had been rekindled like a fire inside me and I knew suddenly that in our own ways, in our own time, we all of us are firekeepers like Keeper talks about, lighting the fires of love and home and family for each other. Firekeepers. A responsibility and an honor.
“Ever hear what happened the first time Keeper cleaned a fish?” Doc was saying.
“No,” Jackie said. “What happened the first time Keeper cleaned a fish?”
“He started crying because he couldn’t find the ears and he wanted to make sure he scrubbed behind them too!”
Would have made a good Indian after all, that Doc.
“It’s a gift,” Keeper was saying the next morning after we’d prayed and sung and I told him about the eagle feather. “Big gift. Bird wants to honor you for what you done there. Left that for you to remind you all the time what you done. Help you remember the teachin’s that come from it.”
I was busy getting breakfast ready and he was leaning back in his chair with his feet propped up on the stove, smoking his pipe and watching me. When I caught his eye he winked at me and smiled real big.
“So … see anythin’ special out there?” he said, sly-like and slow.
“Kaween. Nothin’ special.” I handed him his dish full of bacon and eggs.
“Hmmpfh. Thought maybe you seen somethin’.”
“Like what?”
“Don’t know. Somethin’.”
“You mean, like a vision?”
“Maybe. Vision. Dream. Strange animal. Somethin’.”
“Well, I did have a kind of strange dream one night. Night before I did the ceremony.”
“Hmmpfh,” he said with a mouthful of bannock. “Kinda dream?”
While he ate I told him about the dream of the eagles. He watched me all through the telling and his eyes moved between surprise and understanding. When he finished he relit his pipe and rocked slowly in his chair while I finished my breakfast. It was quiet for a long time.
“So what do you think it means?”
“Hmmpfh. Hard sometimes to tell with dreams. Sometimes you gotta live with ’em for a long time, goin’ back over ’em and over ’em. More gets shown that way. Deeper meanin’s, bigger teachin’s, more messages. Still, there’s somethin’ big there. Somethin’ big.”
“Like what?”
“Well, eagle’s a strong symbol. Water’s a strong symbol. Paddlin’ alone’s a strong sign too. Lots there. Gonna take you long time to sort it all out for yourself, but dreams work that way. Always gonna be more there the longer you look. But here’s what I think one big part is.
“See, you went out there lookin’ to link up with yourself. Go home, find somethin’ there maybe. Somethin’ you been missin’ you don’t even know the name of. Somethin’ you figure you lost might never get back. So you find that old cabin. Sit there. Thoughts go way back. Kinda start feelin’ part of that old cabin even though it’s only a pile of logs now. Kinda feelin’ like home inside. Fall asleep, start dreamin’. When you were runnin’ at the start was like your life before you come home. Always runnin’ lookin’ for shelter. Someplace safe. That canoe’s kinda like your shelter. Our way. The Indyun way. Anishanabe. What you always were. You found it here an’ you’re workin’ hard at lookin’ for more. Feelin’ kinda safe but wantin’ more. The calm water means you’re trustin’ your surroundings. Me, us, this place. That’s how you are when the eagles let you find them.”
“Let me find ’em?”
“Hey-yuh. Let you find ’em. See, us we’re always thinkin’ we’re discoverin’ something out there. Truth is nature’s allowin’ us to see her secrets. Them birds were waitin’ till you found ’em. Wanted to give you a message.”
“I didn’t hear no message.”
“Two eagles turnin’ into an old man and old woman means the grandfathers’n grandmothers are lookin’ out for you. Long as you stay in that canoe they’re always gonna show you which direction to take. That’s why they flew off one way together. You gotta live with that dream for a while, try’n remember which direction they flew. Go talk to a teacher then. They’ll tell you all about that direction. What it means. What kinda work you gotta do. What kinda journey you gotta take.”
“Grandfathers’n grandmothers?”
“Hey-yuh. See, that old cabin gave you back big sense of where you come from. Never had that before. Got a little bit from bein’ around here but not so much as you got there. Grandfathers’n grandmothers mean them that went before. Ancestors. Spirit world ancestors. Always lookin’ out for you now on accounta you were brave enough to go look for them’n yourself too. Also means tradition. The old way. Indyun way. Follow tradition where it leads and you’ll never be lost again. That’s what it means.”
“Don’t know. Not my dream. Maybe means ceremony sometime you gotta do. Maybe means you’re gonna be a dancer yourself. Dance that dance sometime. Don’t know.
“But you’n me got a lotta the same things in our paths. Need to learn same things too. That’s why we’re together. To teach each other. You gotta learn to live the same way as me. See, we got two sets of gifts inside, an’ us we gotta learn to use ’em both. Man gifts and woman gifts. You wanna be Anishanabe, live the Indyun way, you gotta learn to be whole that way. You’n me. Both of us the same. Hmmpfh. Who’da figured?”
“Figured what?”
“Two guys so diff’rent bein’ able to teach each other. Goes that way, I guess.”
“So what I do now?”
“Keep on goin’ back to that dream. Write down stuff that comes to you. Live with it. Try’n see what it’s tellin’ you. Try’n live it all the time. Got lotta responsibility havin’ a dream like that.”
“Responsibility?”
“Hey-yuh. Big gift. Same as that feather. Tellin’ you to always look an’ remember the teachin’s in it all. Do that you get more dreams. More lessons. But always gotta remember one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Always gotta remember … dream and vision without action ain’t nothin’.”
“Hmmpfh. You mean always keep lookin’ for more. Don’t take them lightly.”
“Hey-yuh. Teachin’s always gonna come to you different ways. Dreams sometimes. People sometimes. Animals. Different ways. Quit lookin’ for teachin’s you quit growin’. No such thing in the Indyun way as gettin’ wise. Gettin’ wisdom. Wisdom’s a path you decide to take’n follow, not someplace you get to.”
“Hmmpfh. You mean I’ll never get to be full of wisdom? That there’s always gonna be more? Stay on the path there’s always gonna be more to learn?”
“Hey-yuh. That’s what the Indyun way’s all about. Stayin’ on that good red road.”
“Red road?”
“Yeah, red road. Path of the heart. Stay on that path you learn to be three things.”
“What three?”
“Stay on the path of the heart, the red road, you learn to be a good human bein’ first. Then you learn to be a good man, or good woman dependin’ on who you’re born to be. Then because you learned to be those things sometime you find out you learned how, to be a good Anishanabe, a good Indyun. That’s the way it works. Learn to be good human bein’ everythin’ else follows. Learn to be complete. Your life’s a prayer. That’s our way. Way it’s always been.”
“So what I do with that feather?”
“Same as me. Put it up someplace where you’re always gonna see it. Someplace close to you. More you see it, the more you remember what you’re supposed to be doin’. One of these days you’ll find someone comes your way you wanna give it to maybe. Someone tryin’ to follow the same path. Someone showin’ same kinda courage.”
“Lot to it, eh?”
“Lot to what?’
“The Indyun way. Our way.”
“Hey-yuh. Lot to it. More all the time too.”
“Are we ever gonna be able to learn everything?”
“Nah. World changes all the time. More teachin’s all the time. Always gonna be more. Rules always the same, though. Rules always the same.”
“Rules of tradition?”
“Hey-yuh. Rules of life. Follow ’em you get through anythin’.”
“Funny. Remember how scared I was coming here the first time? Scared about not being able to be an Indyun, scared I’d never be able to be one, scared that I was always gonna be on the outside?”
“Yeah. Scareda that still?”
“Nah. More scared of not being enough of one now. Not living up to what I learned, y’know?”
“Hey-yuh. I know. But don’t worry. You’re doin’ good. But there’s somethin’ you’re gonna need.”
“What?”
“Gonna need those two feathers the old man gave me long long time ago. Me I wanna give ’em to you on accounta you done somethin’ took real bravery. An’ on accounta they’re a big part of who you are. Big part of that old man. Big part of me. Big part of our way. That’s who you are now. Goin’ to that cabin, doin’ that ceremony hooked you up to our way. Put it inside you. Made it into a heartsong. You listen to that song. It’s yours. It’s made up from your life. Everythin’ you went through to get here right now. This place. This moment. So me I wanna give ’em to you to help you always remember who you are.”
He got up slowly and made his way across the cabin to where those feathers hung on the east wall. The drum hung beside them. As he turned back to me I could see big tears rolling down his face and he was smiling at the same time. He walked towards me really slowly looking at those feathers in his hands. Touching them, running his hands down the edges and moving his fingers through the soft plumage at the bottom where they were joined by the moose-hide thong. I stood to meet him.
It felt like forever. An old man’n me. Keeper’n me. Two friends joined by the spirit of another old man who’d moved through our lives in different ways but left his footprints on our hearts anyway. My grampa. When he handed me those feathers we never spoke. Just looked long and deep into each other’s eyes, nodding our heads slowly.
“They’re yours now, Garnet. Always were I guess. Me I was just the keeper of these feathers too. Take ’em. You earned ’em. Honor ’em. Honor ’em by tryin’ to live a good way. Our way.”
“Meegwetch, Keeper. Meegwetch. I will. I’ll try.”
“Hey-yuh. I know you will. I know you will. You’re a good boy. It’s only right you should have these.”
“Why’s that?”
“Might look like eagle feathers right now but me I always believed they were always … Raven feathers.”
We laughed. Laughed good and deep and then we collapsed together in a great big hug. We stood there rocking back and forth with our arms wrapped around each other for the longest time. Feeling that feeling that’s got no name in our language or any other. The feeling that happens when two spirits collide and soar. Kinda like those two eagles in my dream. Two hearts and two lives joined together by that common magic born of the land. A common magic we carry within us always, bringing us together with the ones who’ll be our guides in this life, the ones we travel that good red road with.
The path of the heart. The path of the Anishanabe. The path of the human beings.
“That’s the thing with hugs,” Ma was saying later that day when we were hanging all three feathers on the east wall of her cabin. “Make you feel real good all the time. But there’s a reason. When we hug someone an’ really mean it, we get given a gift by the Creator who sent that person our way. That’s the gift of another heartbeat. We feel it on the empty side of our chests when we really squeeze that person close. The old people say when we’re really happy that extra heartbeat we feel when we’re huggin’s helpin’ us celebrate. An’ when we’re full of hurt or sore that extra heartbeat’s givin’ us the strength we need to get through whatever it is. That’s the old way of seein’ it. Makes sense to me.”
“Yeah,” I said real slowly, “yeah. Makes sense to me too. Thanks, Ma.”
“Oh, you’re welcome, my boy. Now c’mere. Your old ma wants to feel another heartbeat … help me celebrate these feathers.”
She was right. There is another heartbeat when you stop to try and feel it.
Thing with us Ojibways is, we can’t stand holding onto good news for very long without sharing it with somebody. Strange how word gets out so far and so fast sometimes. Around here it’s called the moccasin telegraph. Word is that the moccasin telegraph’s a faster means of communication than any scientist will ever discover. All it takes is one whisper and pretty soon everyone’s in on the news. Sometimes I think us Indians got what you could call satellite ears. We can pick up the frequency of whispering a mile or more away and that’s why the moccasin telegraph’s such an amazing thing to watch. Ma’n me weren’t the least surprised when Chief Isaac and old Doc Tacknyk knocked on the door just after noon.
“Heard the good news, Garnet,” Chief Isaac said, stretching out his hand in congratulations. “Long time since anyone earned an eagle feather around here. Especially two. Prouda ya.’
“That goes for me too, Garnet,” Doc said, patting me on the back with them icy fingers. I could feel their chill right through my wool sweater and was kinda grateful I didn’t need a check-up in the near future. “Isaac and I figure this calls for something special. Don’t we, Chief.”
“Hey-yuh. We do. Fact, we were talking down at the store about it an’ we figure it’s time we had a big feast. Get everyone down to it. Get the drummers to sing you an honor song. Get everyone nice’n fat. Party it up, y’know?”
“You were talking about this down at the store?” I said. “Didn’t happen but this morning.”
“Yeah, an’ we’re all real happy for ya,” Isaac said, sitting down in a chair with a hot mug of tea he’d grabbed off the stove. “Everybody is.”
“Everybody?”
“Hey-yuh. It’s the talk of the reserve today.”
Ma giggled in the background and I saw her’n Doc trade a big wink. They both settled into chairs to hear the rest of Isaac’s plan. I just stood there leaning against the door frame, shaking my head. Even when you’re kinda used to it, the moccasin telegraph’ll amaze you sometimes.
“So what I figger is this,” Isaac said, setting his mug on the floor and leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and hands wide open in front of him. That’s his favorite political stance. Figures it gives him that honest, just-your-neighbor politician look. “Huntin’s been good, lotta fish being smoked, everyone’s in pretty good shape foodwise, so we can all pitch in. Band office’ll throw outta buncha money for extras. Maybe we can get the drummers’n singers from Shoal Lake to come’n do us a big old round dance, party right into the morning. Sound good to you?”
“Sure sounds like a dandy idea to me,” Doc said. “Been a while since this place had a good old-fashioned round dance. Even longer since we had a feast.”
“Hey-yuh,” said Ma, her eyes gleaming at the prospect. “An’ I jus’ know my brothers’ll bring out their fiddles’n guitars. We can do us some jiggin’ too.”
“Good. I’ll make the arrangements. Figure three days to pull it all together. So Saturday night at the community hall startin’ about seven. Be there or be square!” Isaac said. He swilled back the rest of his tea and stood up real official like.
“Be there and be round will be more like it, eh, Garnet!” Doc said, giving me another icy slap on the back.
“Oh good!” Ma said, dancing a little jig step or two beside the stove. “Best way to head into winter’s to have a big feast’n round dance. Jiggin’ too, you watch!”
“ ’Kay then,” Isaac said, and he and Doc headed out the door. “See you.”
“Hey-yuh,” I said, glad to squeeze a word in. “See you.”
We stood together in the doorway watching them make their way down the hill towards the road. Doc was walking in that straight-kneed stork walk he’s got and Isaac was leaning in with his hands all busy, gabbing on about something. Kinda looked like Stan and Ollie and when I pointed it out to Ma we both howled. Isaac and Doc looked over their shoulders and Ma’n me howled even louder. They disappeared down the hill and Ma’n me went back inside.
“What’s this feast thing about anyway, Ma?”
“Well, goes back long way. People’d get together every once in a while to celebrate. Sometimes just the change of seasons. Sometimes like now when they wanna honor somebody for somethin’. Sometimes just on accounta they wanned to show their gratitude by gatherin’ for prayers’n ceremony. Different reasons. But feast’s a special thing. Brings people together.”
“Do I have to do anything?”
“Kaween. Nobody does. Just come. Be with the people. Party it up like Isaac says.”
“Well, I know how to do that!”
“Hmmpfh. Ain’t gonna be none of that blues down there that night. Gonna hear some good Indyun playin’ You save that crazy stuff for your room.”
“Crazy stuff? Thought you liked it?”
“Do. Some anyway. Got a good beat. Lot like Indyuns, them black people.”
“How you figure?”
“Got that music in their bum’n feet. Got the drum in their heart’n soul too. Like us.”
“There’s another way we’re alike too.”
“And how’s that?”
“Well, I was in town one time and heard one of them rednecks call us a bunch of cotton pickin’ Indians.”
I barely dodged the pillow she threw my way.
When word got out about the feast you could feel the energy level climb to an all-time high. For us Indians all you need to really do is say three little words to get people moving. Those words are usually “bingo,” “pow-wow” and “food.” There was more bannock being baked, rabbits skinned and stewed, deer meat roasted and berries cleaned than anytime before in recent White Dog history. It was a virtual cultural revival and all because somebody’d done what our people had done for centuries really. I was walking around feeling kinda proud and a bit unsettled at the same time. I brought it up the next day when Stanley’n Jackie’n me were heading out to hunt up a couple deer for the feast.
“Can’t see it, really,” I was saying. “I don’t feel like I done anything real special, y’know? Mostly I was out there for myself, my own reasons.”
“That’s the way of it,” Jackie said, stopping to scan the area for a good spot to enter the bush. “Funny thing about followin’ our way is you’re always kinda out there for yourself. Don’t matter what, really. Simple thing like tobacco offering or fastin’ out there. You always go for yourself but it always touches other people what you do. Example kinda.”
“Maybe it’s special on accounta it’s you doing it this time,” Stanley said, checking the load in his rifle and rubbing the barrel for luck like he always does.’ Biggest talk around the fires this last summer’n fall’s been how much you changed. Almost like a real Anishanabe now.”
“Hey-yuh, bagga antlers, lookin’ kinda jake, all right. Lookin’ kinda jake,” Jackie said, slapping me on the back.
“And another thing,” Stanley added, looking at both Jackie’n me with that wide-eyed head-tilted look he offers up when he’s really being thoughtful. “People really been needin’ an example of how following our way can help somebody. Really needin’ it. Been forever since anyone’s really got into it and done it the right way. You comin’ here the way you did, lookin’ the way you did, actin’ like a James Brown Indian and then latchin’ onto Keeper’n doing what you been doing the last year’s really made a lotta people look. Really made them see what they been missin’ themselves. You kinda become a leader, and this feast’s all about showin’ how much they respect what you been doin’ since you were home. That and just wantin’ to party like crazy.”
“That’s right,” Jackie said. “It’s about honoring. See, us we find it hard to just come out’n say things like we’re prouda you, we respect you. Timid that way us, I guess. Rather show it. Means more to us an’ to the one we’re doin’ the showin’ to. Always been our way to show the things we feel about people instead of sayin’ them. Ceremony, you know. Old people say that the words disappear too fast’n we sometimes forget we said them. But displayin’ our pride and respect for people is gonna last forever. You’ll remember this feast as long’s you live. Us too. Watch.”
“Hmmpfh,” I said. “Who woulda figured?”
“Figured what?” they said together.
“Figured I’d be being held up as an example of living the Indian way. Didn’t mean to. I was just doing what felt right all along.”
“That’s what it’s about,” Jackie said. “All you ever need to do to follow our way’s to do what feels right.”
“Hey-yuh,” Stanley said. “All you gotta know. Ceremony’n ritual’n customs are just there to help you go deeper once you feel that way. Go deeper, learn more. All starts with feelin’ right inside about something.”
Jackie said, “You follow that teaching and you’ll be lookin’ jake all the time. Lookin’ jake on the inside’s a whole lot better’n bein’ all cool-lookin’ outside. You know that by now.”
“Hey-yuh,” I said, looking at my brothers with pride and doing a quick James Brown spin. “But damn, brother, can I help it if I be lookin’ jake all the time on the outside too?”
We laughed.
“Lookin’ jake. Hmmpfh,” Stanley said. “Still ain’t got no butt. How are you gonna look jake when you ain’t got no butt?”
“That’s right,” Jackie said. “Look at you, my man. Narrow-assed Ojibway. Straight line from your shoulder blades to the back for your heels. Can’t look too jake like that!”
“Reeee-leee!” Stanley said, stretching the word out on purpose to sound like some of the old ladies and eyeing my rear end. “Ho-leeee! Gettin’ kinda ripped off when you buy jeans, ain’t ya?”
“Whaddaya mean, ripped off?”
“Well, it’s like your friend Lonnie told you in T’rana—there’s gotta be two square feet of unused denim back there!”
We laughed again, wrestling around and collapsing onto the ground. The three of us. My friends’n me. My brothers’n me. My family.
When the laughter and wrestling died down we looked each other over and stood up kinda embarrassed.
“Ah-hem … well … done a good jobba spookin’ any deer in this neck of the woods. Better move on down the line a little,” Jackie said.
“Yeah, right. Gotta get one anyway,” Stanley said.
“Hey. Did you guys know that I knew how to make a deer stew before I even got home here?”
“No way. City guy like you? Hmmpfh,” Jackie said, all disgusted.
“No, really,” I said. “I knew how all along.”
“How do you make a deer stew, then?”
“Sneak up on him and whisper in his ear, it’s hunting season, it’s hunting season. He’ll stew over that for days!”
They chased me into the bush uttering ugly threats.
Me I like a good feast. Get to be my age there’s only a couple things really get to be important. One’s a good story’n the other’s free food. Heh, heh, heh. Yeah, them feasts are good things. Mostly on accounta they feed the old ones first. Heh, heh, heh. Sorry. Kinda gettin’ all excited just thinkin’ about it. But them feasts are good an’ us we been doin’ that long time now. Feastin’ an’ celebratin’s big part of the Indyun way. Any time there was somethin’ to be recognized or even any time the people all wanted to get together they had a feast. Wanna keep an’ Indyun happy, keep him round, I always say. Heh, heh, heh.
I remember when I was a boy. Us we feasted lots. Change of ev’ry season, birth of kids, weddin’s, good hunt, good fishin’, anythin’ was good reason to celebrate together. Lotta things changed real big when we got too hooked into the speed of the outside. Got too hung up in the shiny an’ forgot the simple. somethin’ like feastin’ got washed away on accounta we started to thinkin’ we had to be somewhere, do somethin’ or see someone. Community kinda got spread apart from each other even though we were still livin’ in the same place. Thing like feastin’s what helps bring us more together. Reminds us we’re all part of one circle. Got responsibilities. Need each other. Nothin’ big’n mysterious about it. Just people sittin’ down and bein’ grateful for things’n eatin’. Givin’ thanks to the Creator for the food’n all the things around ’em. That’s all.
Simple ceremony but kinda sly in how it works on you. See, we all throw in together. Everyone brings what they can. Deer meat, rabbit, bannock, moose. Mmm. Moose meat. Little wild rice on the side. Hot bannock, lotsa lard. And it all gets offered to the people. But it’s how it’s offered that’s the sly part. See, the thing with ceremony is, after a while you get used to it. Been doin’ it so long it gets to be too easy. Somethin’ you take for granted lots. Not just us. Me I seen lotsa different belieivers got the same problem. Too familiar with their ceremonies and they don’t mean nothin’ after a while. Somethin’ you do on accounta you figure you gotta on accounta you’re a certain kinda believer. That’s where all the lostness comes from. Makin’ the moves but not feelin’ it. So us we feast and remember.
Old man used to tell of times when the people’d gather from all over in big feasts’n celebrations. People’d paddle in from way long ways. Days sometimes. Comin’ together for honorin’ or just praisin’ the earth for the gifts been comin’ long time. Big celebrations. Hand games, lacrosse, target shootin’, foot races, story-tellin’, lotsa stuff goin’ on all round there. Hundreds of people maybe, sometimes more. When he was a boy he said there wasn’t a season went by there without a feast to celebrate. Always happenin’. Me same thing. Lotsa gatherin’s all the time. Maybe not so big as that but always somebody feastin’. It’s on accounta rememberin’. Rememberin’ where it all came from and gettin’ centered on that again. Rememberin’ how we’re supposed to be with each other. Simple ceremony but big teachin’s.
Happens like this. Feast gets talked up. Everyone hears about it, starts gettin’ somethin’ ready. Hunters hunt, bring fresh meat, people go fishin’, bake bannock, everywhere there’s people gettin’ ready. That’s the first sly part. Gettin’ ready. Everyone wants to make up their best. Best moose stew, best bannock, best deer roast. Right away they’re thinkin’ of somethin’ outside themselves. Thinkin’ of the people. That’s what our way’s all about. Thinkin’ of the people. Right away that simple ceremony’s workin’ on their thinkin’.
Then the gatherin’ happens. People come together. See each other headin’ together reminds ’em of how important they are to each other, Maybe how much they miss someone they ain’t talked with for long time. Gets that feelin’ movin’ inside ’em.
Once everyone’s there they all get seated in a great big circle. Old man says he seen one circle one time big as the townsite here. Big as the townsite’n seven deep. Lotta people. Dangerous too. Bad enough gettin’ two hungry Indyuns together but try bein’ close to five hundred Ojibways in a feedin’ frenzy. Heh, heh, heh. Anyway, they get seated down in a big circle. Before the food comes one of the elders’ll get up’n say a big prayer. Big long prayer. Me I remember one time that old woman who was prayin’ prayed so long I kinda fell asleep. It was all the rustlin’ around woke me up. Gladda that. Never wanna miss no feast. Heh, heh, heh. Anyway, the elders, men or women, they pray and give thanks for the food, the land, the people, the gatherin’, everythin’. That’s another sly part. Big reminder of where it all comes from. Everythin’. Hunters remember that it wasn’t them that brought the deer, wasn’t fishermen brought the fish. It all came from the Creator. That’s what that prayer tells ’em.
Then the big part happens. Instead of everyone running up’n grabbin’ plates’n divin’ into it, somethin’ real big happens. Big but simple, eh? Young men, warriors, braves, whatever you wanna call ’em, get up outta the circle’n start servin’ the people. Drummers’n singers are singing an honor song for the people an’ the young men start servin’ ’em. Start with the elders. Old guys like me and the old women get to eat first. It helps us remember that we gotta respect the wisdom of them that lived long time. Respect their vision. What they seen’n learned from. The teachin’s they hold. Reason the young men serve the people’s to remind them of their place. Be humble. Warrior’s gotta be people’s protectors. Biggest part of protectin’ is nurturin’. Helpin’ the people. Bein’ humble enough to feed ’em first. It’s another sly part. Reminds ’em that warriors gotta learn to nurture before they learn to fight or hunt or anythin’. Biggest part of protectin’ is nurturin’. Feedin’ the people first. Takin’ care of ’em. Mother’s side workin’ in them young men. That’s why they do that.
After the elders are served the young men feed the women’n children. Once everyone’s served they sit an’ feed themselves. Women get up after’n fill bowls up. Go around’n round again and again until all the food’s gone. Sly again. Reminds us there ain’t no such things as better or bigger. Equal. Share the responsibility. Men’n women got to be equals. That’s what that simple sharin’ of responsibility reminds us of. Equals. Two sides balanced in that circle. Makin’ it complete. Two sides balanced inside us too. Makin’ us complete. It’s another simple teachin’ that kinda gets forgot lots. Nobody gets up’n talks about all this. Nobody gives big speeches about the teachin’s that are happenin’ durin’ that feast. Us we don’t do that. Eyes gotta grab teachin’s on their own in order to keep ’em, and them feasts sure open lotsa eyes again on the way us Anishanabes gotta be. That’s why they’re such big things and that’s why we keep ’em so simple. The only thing I ever learned by someone tryin’ to hit me over the head with somethin’ was how to duck good. Heh, heh, heh.
By the time Saturday evening rolled around this place was full of energy. Kids were screaming around all afternoon chasing each other around the community hall. Adults were wandering around too looking like they couldn’t figure out what to do up until it came time to head for the feast. Me’n Ma went for a long walk ourselves just to get a stretch of the legs and could see the drummers and singers arriving from Shoal Lake. People were pulling into the townsite like clockwork every five minutes and their relatives would met them at the porch of Big Ed’s store with hugs and laughter. Looked like it was gonna be a big gathering. When Ma’n me headed out towards the hall that evening there were about thirty cars and trucks parked around the townsite and people were heading down to the hall in big meandering lines from everywhere. We could hear the sounds of drumming and singing already.
“Oh boy!” Ma said, picking up the pace a little and tucking a big pot of roast duck under her arm. “Gonna be a hot time in the old town tonight!”
I laughed. It was good to see Ma all excited. My brothers and I had tracked down a couple deer once we’d quit laughing, and I was carrying a big roast under my arm too. I figured if everybody there had something like Ma’n me there was gonna be an awful lotta stuffed Indians lying around tonight.
The hall was crammed. The circle of people went right around the room and I could see where Bert Otter and his helpers had moved all the usual tables and things out back of the building to make room. There were only four tables left at the front of the hall where the food was stashed. All around the room people were laughing and talking. Kids were running around crawling between people, and a large group of older ladies were arranging the food on the tables while everyone else was craning their necks trying to get an idea of the size of the pickings. One group of drummers and singers was wailing away pretty good and people were moving their arms and shoulders to that old beat all around the room. I felt real warm inside looking at it all and I guess Ma knew what I was feeling by the way she wrapped her free arm around my waist and gave me a big squeeze.
“Kinda nice, eh?”
“Yeah, Ma. Kinda nice. Lotsa people. It’s nice.”
“Here for you, you know. Most of these people who drove in are your relatives from Grassy Narrows, Rat Portage an’ Whitefish.”
“Really?”
“Hey-yuh. Second cousins’n such. Been wantin’ to meet you since you been home but never got around to it. Wouldn’t miss no feast though. Good reason to come see you.”
“Wow.”
Jane’n Stanley’n Jackie appeared from out of the crowd and steered Ma’n me towards an empty spot in the front part of the circle. There was a big blanket spread out there and we all sat down together. Jane wrapped her arm around my shoulder and smiled at me.
“See those people right there?” She pointed to a group of about eight people all clumped together on another blanket a few feet away. “That’s our dad’s brother Harlin. Never comes here, him. First time him’n his fam’ly been here in years.”
She spent the next twenty minutes or so pointing out people I’d never seen before and telling me about their place in our family. All the while she was doing this we kept on meeting people’s eyes and they all smiled over at us and nodded their heads towards me real shy-like. I never knew how big our family really was until that night. Big flock of Ravens. Big.
It wasn’t long before Chief Isaac came in wearing his chief’s clothes, followed by Keeper and an old man I’d never seen.
“That’s old Lazarus,” Jackie said real respectful. “Lazarus Green. Midewewin teacher from Rat Portage. Gonna be real special prayer said tonight.”
The three of them made their way towards the open space beside us. Keeper nodded and winked and old Lazarus looked at me with a wide-open look that made me feel kinda funny inside. Like he knew me. Chief Isaac was really into his chief role and made big gestures to everyone he made eye contact with. Us Indians we talk with our hands a lot but old Isaac was really playing it up that night. Probably because of old Lazarus being there, I figured. When they sat down Isaac gestured with his hand and the drummers stopped.
“Meegwetch, meegwetch,” he said in their direction. “Welcome. Real glad everyone could make it to our feast. First time we had a feast here in a long time now. Good to see so many friends from all over. Share with us. Help us celebrate. Help us strengthen the circle. And afterwards, once we ate, maybe come on over here and help me stand up!”
The room erupted in laughter. One thing about Chief Isaac, he kinda gets caught up in the politician thing sometimes but he never forgets the Indian way of doing things. There’s always time for a good laugh, and Isaac was right there with the first funny of the evening.
“We have a very special guest with us tonight. One you probably already know but for those of you who don’t, let me tell you a little bit about Lazarus Green.
“Lazarus Green is from the Rat Portage Reserve. He’s been a respected teacher and leader of his people for longer’n most of us have been around. He’s ninety-four years old and the way he tells it … you young women better be on the lookout … he gets a little frisky once he’s ate!”
The old man cackled, and when I watched his wrinkled old face crack up in a toothless grin I found myself liking him right away. Some of that eerie feeling in my belly eased away.
“Anyway, Lazarus is here to help us celebrate. Celebrate the undertakin’s of young Garnet Raven here, who’s become a well-liked part of our service since he’s been home with us an’ also to help us celebrate comin’ together like this. It’s somethin’ we need to be doing more often. So I’d like to ask Lazarus Green to say our openin’ prayer for us tonight.”
We all stood as the old man rose to his feet. Lotta the time us Indians will stand for prayers at ceremonies. Showing our respect for the person praying and to show that we’re not afraid to stand before the Creator in prayer. Ma took my hand while we all bowed our heads.
Lazarus cleared his throat and began to pray in Ojibway. He prayed for a long time and although I only understood a small part of it I could feel the sincerity in his voice. Been around a bit with Keeper since then and heard a lotta old people pray and them old languages really stir something up inside me every time I hear them. Heard Sioux, Cheyenne, Cree, Blackfoot and it always hits me the same. Every now and then Ma would give my hand a squeeze and when I heard my name come outta the jumble of Ojibway words she squeezed even harder. Lazarus’s voice rose and fell, rose and fell for a long time, and that room around us was as quiet as I ever heard anywhere. Not even the little kids were squealing around all that time. When he finally finished and began to sit down I could see people nodding their heads towards each other and smiling. He grinned at me when I sat down and gave me the Indian sign for “travel well.”
Keeper was busy arranging a big smudging pot in front of old Lazarus. Pretty soon cedar smoke began to fill the room. With a quick little signal from Keeper, Stanley’n Jackie and a handful of other young men got to their feet. I started to get up too but Jackie pushed me back with one big hand. He smiled at me and shook his head. For the next while the young men brought each of the dishes over to Lazarus, who passed them over the smudging pot, which was a large shallow clay bowl with intricate designs around the outside. The men then moved around the circle offering food to all the elders and then the women and children. It took about half an hour to get everyone fed before they filled their own bowls and sat down. All the while the serving was going on the drummers and singers kept up a steady stream of songs. When one drum group stopped to eat another took up the singing.
There were smiling faces everywhere. People busied themselves with the meal and visited all around their little areas. Some sat crosslegged, others lay on one elbow, some on their stomachs.
“More smackin’ of lips goin’ on around here than at your average drive-in movie,” Jane said.
“Hey-yuh,” Stanley offered in agreement. “Only here when you get more goose it’s a family thing!”
“Ojibways’re the only people I know can eat’n gab at the same time without missin’ a beat,” Jackie said, with his mouth full of moose meat just to prove his point.
“That’s why we got such big cheeks,” Ma said, getting all our attention right away.
“Oh yeah, Ma? Why’s that?” I asked, knowing it was a set-up.
Ma smiled real big. “On accounta’s not polite to be stickin’ food in your face when someone’s talkin’. So us we can stash a bunch in the sides of our face’n keep right on chewin’!”
We all laughed. Keeper waved me over to where he’n Isaac’n Lazarus were sitting.
“Garnet Raven, this is Lazarus Green,” Isaac said, waving a piece of bannock in Lazarus’s direction.
“Meet’cha,” Lazarus said, offering his hand.
“Ahnee,” I said. “I’m happy to meet you.”
Elders got a way of shaking hands that’s real comforting. They take yours in both of theirs real soft and shy-like and hold onto it all the time they talk to you. Used to surprise me lots when people around here did that but I got used to it after a while. Still, old Lazarus holding onto my hand like that felt really good, like there was a current there.
“Harold’n me, we did lots together. Long time friends us. Your dad, he’d come see me now’n then. Good man. Be prouda you today. Both of them.” He looked into my eyes with that wide-open look I first noticed about him.
“Thank you. Meegwetch,” I said.
“Welcome. You keep listenin’ to this one here.” He hooked his thumb Keeper’s way. “Him’n me are gonna be workin’ together for the next while. Gonna be away lots now. But you listen what he tells you when he’s here. Same road. Only now’s time to go further. Both of you. So you listen. Do what he tells you. This thing you done, it’s good but it’s only the start of the trail. There’s more.”
“I’ll listen,” I said, realizing that the current I was feeling from the old guy was a current of kindness. Pure. Purer than any I ever felt before or since. “Keeper’n me are friends now. I … I trust him.”
“That’s good. That’s good. Trust gotta be there when you travel this road. He told me your dream. That’s what you gotta work on now. That dream’s the key to your road. Stick with it till you run outta questions. Then wait for another one. Another teachin’. Another dream maybe. They’ll come if you want ’em. Them they always come when you want ’em. When you work for ’em.”
“Lazarus?”
“Hey-yuh.”
“My grampa’n my dad … am I … like them?”
“Hmmpfh. If you got courage in you, if you got lotta love, if you got a feelin’ for the land inside you feels warm, if you get scared, doubtful, worried’n ain’t afraid to tell about it, an’ if you move more towards the gentle than the tough … then maybe you’re like them. Ain’t for me to say. Ain’t for you to say. Ain’t for anyone to say right now on accounta no one gonna know till you’re done walkin’ this road what you been like. That’s how we stay alive forever, you’n me’n Keeper here. Everybody. That’s how we stay alive forever.”
“How do you mean?”
“Stories get told about us when we’re gone. People feel same way inside when they hear them stories as they felt when we were with ’em. Nice. Safe. Warm. Loved. That’s how we stay alive forever. Make a good story of our life right here. People always gonna wanna tell it then. Part of us gonna be alive in the hearts of our relatives years’n years from now. Like your grampa’n dad are alive in you right now. That’s how.”
“So us we’re all storytellers?”
“Hey-yuh. Right now. Story of our life. One thing, though.”
“What’s that?”
“Them they always asked questions too. Do that you’ll be like ’em all the time.”
“Hmmpfh. Meegwetch.”
“Welcome. You come see me any time with this one here. I’ll be expectin’ you.”
“I will. Gotta go now. Get busy.”
“Busy?”
“Hey-yuh. Got a story to work on.”
They laughed. Good and long and deep. As I walked back to my family they were all smiling. Sitting down on the blanket with them felt like the most natural thing in the world.
“So what’d you’n old Lazarus talk about?” Jackie asked.
“Not much. Storytellin’. That’s all.”
“Kinda storytellin’?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“Don’t know yet?”
“Hey-yuh. Kinda startin’ to get an idea, though. Kinda startin’ to get an idea.”
“Too much bannock ain’t good for some people!”
We laughed but as we met each other’s eyes I knew we all understood. Funny how that works sometimes.
It took about an hour before everyone had eaten their fill. The only things left on the four tables at the front of the hall were a few scraps of bannock. There were the sounds of happy burping and the flick of matches and lighters as people got ready to enjoy an aftersupper smoke. It wasn’t long before Chief Isaac stumbled to his feet. His cheeks puffed out like they do when you wanna keep a big burp to yourself and he adjusted the belt on his trousers as he stood. The drummers stopped.
“Well, that was fun! My mouth ain’ been that busy since I made that speech for fundin’ last year! Ahem … anyway. Movin’ on here. We wanna get Garnet Raven to come over here. Garnet’s been here with us for about a year’n a half now. You all know about him bein’ taken away when he was a baby. Twenty years he was gone. Made it back last year and has been livin’ with his ma’n his family here ever since.
Most of you know how different he was when he got here. Fact, it’s been the talka the town ever since! Heh, heh. Kinda looked like somebody spray-painted Gumby all glow-in-the-dark and glued an sos pad to his head! Heh, heh. Anyway, most of you know that he’s been really workin’ hard at bein’ one of us. Fact, he’s put lotta us to shame for learnin’ as much as he has. Been workin’ with Keeper here’n doin’ lotsa smudgin’ and learnin’ about our ways. Old ways. Somethin’ I guess we get too busy for sometimes but somethin’ a lotta us need to pay attention to. Garnet here’s been an example to all of us how important them things are. So we wanna get him over here. The Red Eagle drummers from Shoal Lake have brung an honor song especially for you, Garnet, an’ they’re gonna sing it now. It’s your song. Always gonna be sung in your honor now. While they’re singin’ I want you all to stand and those of you who brung gifts for him can come and offer them to him while the drummers sing. Garnet?”
Everyone stood at the same time as me. Walking across that floor that night felt like my feet were concrete. Every step was a chore. It was the most nervous I’d ever been in my whole life. I never expected gifts. I figured we’d just dance and sing and celebrate. It was all getting to be a bigger and bigger surprise as we went along. People were looking at me and there were more than a few shiny eyes that night. Isaac motioned me to stand between Keeper’n Lazarus. As I took my place they both reached out to shake my hand and give me a big warm hug. Standing there that night between those two old guys felt like the safest, most comfortable place in the world despite my nervousness.
I never knew too much about the differences between honor songs and other pow-wow songs before but that night I felt it. There was a note of celebration ringing through those Ojibway words that reached inside and touched a special place in me and I felt the tears coming. When I looked over at Keeper he just nodded his head like he knew how I felt and was telling me to just let ’em go. I did. Pretty soon people started coming up to me carrying things. They placed them at my feet and then stood to shake my hand and hug me. The song went on and on and that pile of gifts got bigger’n bigger. The warm feeling inside of me from all those hugs, all those other heartbeats, was almost overwhelming. Every face was a tearfilled face that night. By the time the song was over and I saw my ma reach over and pick something up and head my way I thought I’d pretty much had it all as far as honoring was going. Turned out I was wrong.
Her eyes were all sparkly and them tears streaming down her face were like little creeks of silver. She was carrying something bright yellow that looked almost familiar. She handed it to me and then collapsed in my arms crying and kissing my neck over and over again. The room was quiet again. When she finally let go she looked me deep in the eyes.
“Prouda ya, my boy,” she said. “Prouda ya. These people’re prouda ya too. You’re one of us now. Always gonna be no matter what or where you might go. Always gonna be one of us. Them twenty years? Gone now. You’re home in our hearts. So me, I want you to have this shirt I made for you. Us we call ’em ribbon shirts. Special kinda shirts we wear for special occasions, like ceremonies, feasts’n stuff. Got colored ribbons on it remind us of things. You ain’t got no tribal colors yet but me I sewed on these blue’n green ones on accounta they were your grampa’n dad’s colors. Wanted ’em to remind you of where you come from’n how you wanna be. Think you’ll recognize the shirt.”
She hugged me again. As I unfolded the shirt the material felt familiar. It wasn’t until I had it all held out in front of me that I knew what it was. It was the balloon-sleeved yellow shirt I had on the day I arrived at White Dog. The sleeves were cut back regular, the long pointed collar was gone and the ribbons ran across the chest and back and down the arms. It was beautiful.
“You saved this thing?”
“Hey-yuh. Always kinda wanted to remember how you looked. Didn’t know it’d come to be like this though. Not till a while ago anyway.”
“Thanks, Ma.”
“Wanted to make it up for you on accounta now it’s like your life. Our way got built onto the way you had to grow up. Where you come from is always gonna be part of where you go now. See?”
“Hey-huh. I see. Don’t know what to say, though.”
“Don’t say nothin’. Put it on.”
“Now?”
“Now. Then dance me around all night. Look pretty jake with that on.”
When I slipped that shirt over top of my T-shirt the whole room erupted in applause. It fit perfectly, of course, Ma being the expert sewer that she is, and it felt like an old friend. Lazarus’n Keeper came over to give it a good feel and me another handshake. When the drummers started their first round dance song of the evening Ma’n me were the first ones on the floor. Round dance is where everyone gets together holding hands in a big circle. It’s the big social dance at all our gatherings and a big favorite everywhere I’ve been. Most everyone there that night joined in right away. When that first one was over Ma’n me headed over to check out the other gifts.
There were handmade moose-hide gloves, a tanned buckskin jacket with really beautiful flowered beadwork across the back, moccasins, a deer-hide pouch that I knew would be perfect for holding my smudging stuff, bullets, fishing line and an old beaver fur hat with big earflaps.
“Gonna look real jake in all that,” Keeper said, peering over my shoulder.
“Really,” I said.
“No more James Brown Indian, I guess, eh?” Stanley whispered in my ear.
“No more, bro’.”
“Might wanna look at the linin’ of that jacket,” Jane said.
I wasn’t surprised. It was the lime green trousers I’d worn with that yellow shirt. Everyone laughed.
“I shot the deer’n tanned the hide,” Jackie said, squeezing my shoulder hard. “Jane did the beadin’. Was my idea to use the pants. Were gonna save it for Christmas but this seemed like a better idea.”
“Do you know what kinda underwear you were wearin’ that day?” Keeper blurted out.
“No. Why?”
“On accounta they just might surface in that beaver hat!”
We all laughed and there was a big circle of hugs again in that little group.
The rest of that evening was spent talking with people who wandered over one after another. I met cousins twice removed, nephews’n nieces, uncles’n aunts and a lot of people who knew my family. We laughed and talked and danced long into the night. By the time the people started winding their way towards home and their beds I was wearing all those things I’d been given to wear. Felt real good and I still prefer the smell of smoky tanned hide to any other perfume in the world.
“Lookin’ jake, Garnet! Lookin’ jake!” I must have heard that about fifty times from different people. Somehow I knew they weren’t just talking about the things I was wearing.
“Wanna go home now, my boy?” Ma said, looking pretty worn out by this time.
“No, Ma, I think I wanna take a little walk by the lake for a while. I know I’ll be warm. Got gloves’n everything.”
“You okay?”
“Hey-yuh. I Just need to think about all this for a bit.”
“ ’Kay then. Don’t be long. That old Keeper’s gonna wanna be having his breakfast cooked up same as usual, you know.”
“Hey-yuh. I know. I won’t be long.”
“ ’Kay then.”
“ ’Kay then.”
“See you.”
“See you, Ma”
She walked off towards home and the rest of my little family followed her. I watched them walk across the light that was thrown from the hall until they disappeared into the night. When I felt the hand on my back I knew it was Keeper.
“Okay?”
“Yeah. I’m okay. Kinda feelin’ humble though. Wanna go have a little walk by the lake.”
“That’s good. You go. Feel what you’re feelin’. Remember it an’ keep part of it inside you. Save it. Sometime you’re gonna need it. It’s good.”
“Lazarus gone?”
“Hey-yuh. Too old to party it up all night no more. Sleepin’ at Isaac’s. Gonna head home early.”
“Good man, that Lazarus.”
“Hey-yuh. Good man.”
“He’s gonna be your teacher now, eh?”
“Hey-yuh. It’s time. Time to carry through on that deal I made with Harold. Start really bein’ a keeper.”
“Keeper?”
“Yeah.”
“I love you, man.”
“Hey-yuh. I know. An’ me … I love you too, Garnet Raven. I love you too.”
We put our hands on each other’s shoulders and stared into each other’s eyes through the tears that were there. It was a look as pure as the current I’d felt running through old Lazarus when he took my hand. No words. Wasn’t any need for them anymore. We stood there looking at each other for a long time while the last of the people filed past, unashamed of showing our feelings for each other, unashamed to let others see us like that and as connected as those two eagle feathers that hung on the wall of Ma’s cabin. Finally, we sniffled and nodded at each other real slow. He gave my shoulder one last squeeze and turned towards Shotgun Bay and his little cabin in the bush. I watched him move across that same stretch of light until he reached the edge of the darkness. Then he stopped and turned to face me.
“Garnet?”
“Yeah?”
“Mornin’?”
“Yeah. Mornin’.”
“ ’Kay. Jus’ checkin’.”
“Keeper?”
“Yeah?”
“Dreams.”
“Hey-yuh,” he said with a wave. “You too. Dreams.”
The moon is a hand drum that hangs in the sky. It hangs there on nights like that night of the feast, lit up forever by the spirits of people who search the sky for magic. The dreamers. The believers. The ones who know that power lives in the things we see’n hear’n wonder about. The ones who come to stand upon the land and search for stories. Teachings. The blazes made by them that went before. The signs that mark the path we’re all supposed to follow. The path of the heart. The path of the Anishanabe. The path of the human beings. The red road.
They used to tell me in that life I lived before that there’s only four directions. North, south, east and west. They were wrong. That red road’s got seven of them and for a human being to learn to travel well, like old Lazarus signaled to me that night, they gotta learn to walk all seven. Seven makes the circle. The complete journey. The whole human being. In our way there’s the four usual ones I mentioned but it’s the other three that make the road so tough to travel. Them three are up and down and—inside.
The old ones say that there’s a fire for each one of them directions. A fire where the travelers sit when they reach it. Warm themselves. Rest. Reflect on the journey. Gather with the old ones who sit by that fire forever, waiting for the stragglers, the lonesome and the afraid.
Travel each direction, you learn to see and hear and feel more. Sit by each of those fires and gather your strength. East is the place of light where the sun comes from. You travel that road you learn illumination. The beginnings of knowing. South is the place of innocence and trust. Southern travelers learn to listen to the teachings with an open heart and open ears. West is the look inside place. Investigating what you feel. Growing. North is the place of wisdom. You pause. Look back along the path you followed and see the lessons, the teachings. Reflect. And the up and the down is the motion of life. The day-by-day things we get so hung up on all the time. The things that make us forget how far we traveled. The lessons that came from breathing. The teachings built into the power of choice we picked up along the way. That’s where we practice the wisdom we found from traveling the first four. Through the motions of that up’n down. And that last fire, that last destination on that red road, is inside. The place of truth. The warmest fire. The fire that chases out the darkness. You gather there with all the travelers who made that journey too and you are alone no more. There’s feasting and celebration. Great stories are told and you learn that you gotta keep that fire going on accounta there’s more to come. There’s always more to come. Travelers who are gonna need a guide because we’re all tourists really. And you never get a map until you reach that seventh fire.
I thought about that journey that night. Watching that hand-drum moon hanging over White Dog Lake reminded me how far I’d come. How far I’d come since the night that old man’n me watched it float across the sky. The night I found my guide. The night I took that first step along that red road. The night I started home.
Learn to be a good human being, he said. Learn to be a good man. Then sometime along the way you start to realize that because you done those things you learned how to be a good Indyun. A good Anishanabe. You learned the why of this life instead of just the how. You found your way to that seventh fire. Hmmpfh. Who’d have ever figured this? Looking jake, they said. Looking jake. Sitting under that moon that night I knew for the first time what it was all about. Looking jake was sitting by that seventh fire. Sitting by the fire that burns on the fuel of your own truth. The logs and kindling you picked up along that red road.
It’s been five years since I came home along that bumpy as hell gravel road. Just over three since the night of that feast and I’m still a tourist. Got a good guide though. Got a good guide. He’s been workin’ with old Lazarus ever since that night and teachin’ me as he goes along. We spend a lotta time going over those old teachings, them old ways of seeing, and it’s funny because there’s always this feeling coming up inside me when we talk long into those nights, that somewhere, sometime I heard it all before. Like it’s not so much being taught to me as reawakened. Rekindled. Like I sat by that fire before. Hmmpfh. Maybe the old coot’s right all along. We do carry the embers of those old fires inside us. Something inside us keeps those embers glowing and it just takes a good guide to lead us back there and teach us how to stoke them up again. Firekeepers. Tourists. All of us. Hmmpfh. Who’da figured it, eh?
We still go sit by the edge of Shotgun Bay and watch that big orange hand drum of a moon float across the sky. Still walk over through the frost and snow and rain to pray and sing and cook breakfast. Still having adventures and laughter. Still learning. Looking more’n more jake all the time. Be a storyteller, he told me. Talk about the real Indyuns. About what you learned, where you traveled, where you’ve been all this time. Tell them. Tell them stories on accounta them they all need guides too. Hmmpfh. Guess we’re all Indians really. Heh, heh, heh.
AN EXTRACT FROM RICHARD WAGAMESE’S
FORTHCOMING NEW NOVEL
DREAM WHEELS
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Prologue
THE OLD ONES SAY that fate has a smell, a feel, a presence, a tactile heft in the air. Animals know it. It’s what brings hunter and prey together. They recognize the ancient call and there’s a quickening in the blood that drives the senses into edginess, readiness: the wild spawned in the scent. It’s why a wolf pack will halt their dash across a white tumble of snow to look at a man. Stand there in the sudden timeless quiet and gaze at him, solemn amber eyes dilating, the threat leaned forward before whirling as one dark body to disappear into the trees. They do that to return him to the wild, to make all things even once again: to restore proper knowledge. The Old Ones say animals bless a man with those moments by returning him to the senses he surrendered when he claimed language, knowledge and invention as power.
The great bull sensed it and it shivered. The loose skin draped across its bulk belied the tough muscle and sinew that gave locomotive strength to its movement in the chute. The smell was in the air. The ancient smell. It gave a new and different air to the harsh light and dust of the arena. This was old, this scent, causing something to stir in its Indian and Spanish blood that it had never encountered before. Not death, not threat, not challenge because the bull had faced those many times. No, this was more than that. This was more a bidding than an urge, a call forward, an invitation to spectacle, a beckoning to an edge the bull had never approached before. The bull shifted its eighteen hundred pounds and there wasn’t much room to spare on either side of its ribs. It didn’t like the feel of the wood, the closeness, the thin prick of rough-sawn board along its sides. The rage of others was dribbled into the board against its nose, and the bull shivered again and stamped its heavy cloven feet into the dirt of the arena floor. The noise of the crowd beyond the chutes rose and fell awkwardly against the babble of the cowboys tugging and rubbing and plying leather in preparation amidst the jingle of metal, the snap and rub and crinkle of hard rope and the clomp of booted feet and the whinny and nicker of horses unsettled by the turn of the air, the high, sharp slice of the ancient order that called to them now too. A moment was coming, a confrontation. The bull bellowed once and banged the sides of the chute.
Man feet scraped on the boards at its side, the side facing away from the open ocean of the infield: the man side. Out there, in the packed brown dirt rectangle pressed together by high wooden fencing, was his world, the one the bull controlled, the one they entered with the smell of fear high in the air. The men talked, their voices strained, tight in their throats, and the bull felt the abrasive itch of rope start around its shoulders. Just as the dull clank of cowbell rang beside him the bull caught the flare of action between the boards of the chute as another bull and rider exploded into the arena. The noise of the crowd swelled incredibly and there came the bashing and buckling sounds of leather, rope, bell, skin and bone crashing against each other amplified by roiling clouds of dirt that held it, gave it the shape and tone and snap of electrified energy. It didn’t last long. A long, drawn-out sigh accompanied the rider suddenly slammed into the dirt, the sound rising again as bright-costumed men raced about attracting the bull’s anger, diverting it away from the rider who scrambled to his feet, eyes ablaze with a strange mix of indignation and fear, and leaped for the security of the fencing. The great bull bellowed to its cousin in the infield and shook the sides of the chute in celebration of another display of power. The men around it spoke bravely to each other but the bull felt the anxiety creeping just beneath their words. It enjoyed that and it bellowed again.
The movement around the chute increased. Men in front of it were pulling rope against the gate that would soon fling open and send the bull careening into the light and heat and dirt of the battle. The men over top of its back moved silently, deliberately now, and the bull stamped and rolled back and forth, side to side, front to back in the chute forcing them to agitation, their words harsher to each other. The rope about its shoulders was secured and the clank belt set in place. The heavy clink and rattle of the bell angered the bull. It dangled beneath it heavy as another testicle but irksome, foreign, and as its weight settled the bull smelled the ancient smell again and rolled its eyes in their sockets to look upward at the men, rolling its head while it did so and giving the topmost boards a solid thwack and shiver.
It watched the young man climb the fence. Saw the set of his face, determined, calm and strong beneath the fear and felt the firm slap of his gloved hand on its neck as he leaned over, feet straddled on each side of the chute. The man bore the smell too. The bull shifted in the chute, made a small bit of room to accommodate the legs of this man who smelled so richly of that ancient call. It felt the dull rounded rowel of spur against its flank as the man slid into place and it shivered, the loose skin unsettling the man, feeling him grip with his thighs searching for hold, finding it and relaxing again. The bull snorted and half rose on its hind feet, twisting its head side to side and trumpeting the acceptance of this challenge and hearing the buzz of the crowd rise in time with its huge head over the top of the chute. The men spoke quicker, shorter words snapped at each other and the bull felt the waxed rope being pulled tighter and tighter about its girth.
This was the call. This was the ancient order of things, the primal encounter, the scent of the coming together, bone to bone, blood to blood and will to will. The bull understood this. It knew that the man straddling its back answered the same urge. The scent was high in the air now. Fate. Destiny. Life itself, keen as the wolves’ call in its blood. The great bull bawled its challenge again and felt the air contract as the crowd drew breath, sensed the man tighten his grip, felt the pull and yank and strain of rope and the ripple of gloved fingers in the small hollow behind its shoulders. It reared again in the chute. Wild. Raging. The call driving it back into primordial time.
He planted his feet on the third rail of the chute and allowed himself one quick look at the arena. It never failed to amaze him. People of all sorts gathered together to witness a part of his life that he had never quite learned to equate with spectacle. Joe Willie had always ridden as a matter of fact. From the time he could remember he had been straddling something, from his father’s bouncing thigh in the living room to the pony at three, the sheep at mutton busting at four, the horses at six, the steers at eight and finally, the bulls at ten. Sticking and staying had come to him as naturally as walking and riding, lunging out of the chute on a bareback horse, a saddle bronc or a bull like the champion Brahma cross beneath him now, was merely the definition of a life, a cowboy life bred in his Ojibway-Sioux bones as surely as this rodeo grew out of the old Wild West shows his great-grandfather had whooped and hollered and ridden in alongside old Buffalo Bill himself.
Joe Willie shrugged. Too busy for those thoughts now, too busy to entertain anything but the feel of this great bull, the ribs of it through the loose skin against his calves and thighs telegraphing twists and jumps and kicks in a microsecond, reacting to it, sticking and staying. He needed to think ahead to that first mad plunge out of the chute. The dervish beneath him whipping him forward eight seconds in time to definition, truth, life itself.
The bull was called See Four after the powerful military explosive and the number of seconds a rider would likely see on its back before its energy detonated completely and he was blown skyward to crash and eat arena dirt. Up to now that name had held true. See Four was a living legend. Unridable, they said. Bred of bloodstock that had proven to be champion rodeo stock as well, See Four was the draw a cowboy didn’t want in any short go or preliminary round. He was a money killer. Eighteen hundred pounds, nearly six feet high at the shoulder, with a hump from his Brahma roots swelling into a neck and head wider than a horse’s haunches. Only the space behind the shoulders allowed a rider any chance at all. Only there was there purchase, the slim chance to exist there a tumultuous eight seconds. Behind that slight margin the bull owned everything. To slip beyond it a cowboy could only hope to be thrown clear enough to escape the fury of the hooves and horns when he landed. Behind it was cataclysm.
Joe Willie measured it from above. He rubbed the tough leather glove on his left hand against the inside of his thighs, allowing a little of the rosin to stick there. The bull had reared suddenly, causing him to lose his concentration, and he’d stepped up and off to reclaim his focus. Now, he could feel the world narrowing in scope. He heaved a deep breath, heard the sound of the crowd shrinking, diminishing, the yells of the cowboys pulling backwards out of the air until only a thick, heavy, muffled silence remained where the creak of leather, the huff of the breath of the bull, his own tattered breath and the thudded stamp of hoof on ground existed to be heard. Then he slid downward onto the brindled back of See Four. Everything was slow motion now, from the clenching of his hand under the bull rope to the steady hauling in of tension on the same rope from his father’s hands. His eyes unblinking, he saw nothing but the squashed elongated U of the bull’s horns. Peripherally the slo-mo preparations of his friends and supporters keyed him up, excited him, edged him closer to the moment. He felt his father’s hand on his shoulder and allowed himself a brief second to look and caught his steely-eyed nod.
“Suicide wrap,” he said.
“You sure?”
“Gotta be,” he said, gritting his teeth.
His father nodded grimly, then began looping the bull rope between the fingers of Joe Willie’s gloved hand. The wrap made it easier to hold the rope but also made it three times harder to free the hand during or after the ride. Joe Willie watched as his father tended to the latch. This ride was everything. This ride was the ride to the top of the world.
The rodeo announcer’s voice seeped through.
“Coming out of chute number three, a young cowboy who can take over the number one ranking for the title of All-Round Cowboy with a successful ride. He’s already a champion in the saddle bronc and the bareback riding and he’s matched up here with the undefeated, unridden legend, See Four. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, as tough as they come, a true cowboy, Joe Willie Wolfchild!”
He heaved a deep, rib-expanding breath and let it go slowly. Beneath him the bull shuddered once then settled into a curious quiet. They sat there connected by the bull rope and one gloved hand, waiting. There was a smell in the air. Joe Willie shook his head once quickly to clear it, shivered his legs against the bull’s sides, raised his right arm slowly to clear the top rail of the chute and nodded solemnly to the rope man at the front of the chute.
And the world exploded.
The great bull was true to his name. He detonated. The rage in him was complete and perfect and whole and when the gate flew open he felt it blast apart into a shrapnel of motion. There was no reason to it at first, just an explosion out of the chute, just a relinquishing of boundaries, just a launch into a space he understood the order of. Implicitly. His eyes rolled back and upward and he caught the flare of the lights as he raised his shoulders and then drove them downward with a powerful kick of his back hooves. The man’s weight stayed where it was supposed to. He felt it settle into the pocket of flesh behind the bone of his shoulder and he felt the twin kick of spurs against the bottom of his neck. When he landed after the first kick out of the chute the bull began to reason.
He felt the hand against his back. He felt the man’s bulk pinned to that point and the greater part of his weight leaned toward it. Left. The bull understood the direction intuitively and knew that the man would struggle to maintain his position, the rest of his body, toward the hand. He twisted violently the opposite way.
See Four spun, once, twice, three times, four times in a delirious circle, kicking, bucking, head and shoulder rolling away from the strength of the hand on his back. Just at the height of the spin’s energy he halted it, kicked twice, arched his back and bucked before spinning back to the hand side. The clank of the bell spiked into the centre of his head, frenzied him, enraged him further, and he knew when the man was gone the sound would disappear. So he spun. He spun and kicked and bucked against the bright whirl of the lights, the roar of the people far away across the ocean of dirt and the splash of colour of the other men bounding and leaping around his mad tear. He rolled his great head at them, bawled loudly and thrashed his horns from side to side while kicking and throwing his rear the opposite direction.
That’s when he felt it. The slip, the loss of contact. The feel of air between the slamming buttocks of the man and his spine. He began to work the air. He ignored the man and focused his rage on that pocket of air, trying to increase it, stretch it, enlarge it, use it to separate the man from the rope around his shoulders. He drove all four hooves clear of the ground in a wild, hurtling leap that drew screams from those faraway people and a deep grunt from the man on his back. When his hooves slammed back into the earth he spun again and as he did, he kicked out, leaned away from the glove and felt the air pop open and he knew he’d won.
He spun twice then reversed it. When he did he felt the man float free, felt him take to the air except for the hand that stayed tight to the rope. This confused the bull. The weight was suddenly gone from his back but presented itself now, unpredictably, at his side with a hard knock in the ribs as the man slammed into his flank, the pressure of the hand pulling fiercely to that side. He kicked and spun the other way, determined to end this. He felt the man dragged along. There were others now. The brightly coloured men were racing about screaming in man talk and waving at the bull and others yelling and running and flailing their hats in his face.
The ancient scent was high in the air and the bull knew that this moment was the moment of challenge, of change, of fate and destiny. Every kick, every rise and fall of shoulders and haunches and torso was reduced to a silent roll, a trickle of motion, and even the terrible bawl that erupted from his throat spread across the air like the wave of tall grass in a light breeze. He felt the man’s feet slump along through the dirt, dragged, hauled, torn along, and still the pressure of the hand in the rope around his shoulders stayed where it was. He felt blood in his nostrils, behind his eyes, and he kicked as never before to free himself, then rose and fell in silent time and the bull felt the body twist around the arm, felt the back of the man’s head thump against its shoulder, felt a tearing, a separation somewhere above the hand and it worked that separation like it had worked the pocket of air before. It rolled its back toward the man and then away and it felt the hand give, felt the rope slip and the horrible clank drop away to be smothered in the dirt.
The bull kicked and spun in celebration of its freedom and the men raced around it trying to get to the man who lay in a heap on the ground. They disconcerted him. He wanted the quiet of the chute that led out of the arena now but the men darting around his head made it hard for him to find it. He speared his horns at them to clear them from his way. He kicked. The crowd roared and he saw the man he’d flung from his back try to stand. A hat was waved in his face and he charged at it. When his vision cleared all the bull could see was the man he’d thrown and the chute he wanted into beyond him. He charged toward it. He felt the puffy give of flesh and the snap of bone as he charged over the man and he kicked backwards once when he was past it and felt the dull thunk of contact. The crowd noise was shrill and hard on his ears and See Four trotted heavily into the chute to escape. As he moved deeper into the shadowed recess he felt time regain itself, reassert itself, and he calmed gradually, glad of the escape.
In the arena time was still in disarray.
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