Full Circle

The final days of our trip have been as hectic (and as educational) as the first ones. Though we got a little rest on Sunday, we also spent some time with Bob Shimmick, who talked to us about land use in Indian country. He critiqued Paul Bunyan mythology and the logging companies that have not only stripped reservation forests, but have often used coercive and deceptive methods to do so, like setting fires to be able to collect “dead and down” trees. He also discussed the conflicts that presently exist on reservations, where many of the lands allotted to Indians by the Dawes Act have been illegally taken and sold. On White Earth Reservation alone, 830,000 acres were stolen, and only 10,000 have been given back. Mr. Shimmick ended his talk with a challenge: “The problems existing in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.”

On Monday, we drove to Leech Lake Tribal College, where we met with interim president Dr. Ginny Carney. She spoke of the challenges of developing a post-secondary education institution within the native community. When she arrived as a teacher at the tribal college a few years after its founding, classes were being held in two abandoned churches and three condemned houses, and both teachers and students were frequently absent. Soon, under her guidance and the leadership of President Leah Carpenter, the college began hiring only teachers with masters degrees or those who would commit to earning them. Today, the college has two beautiful new buildings and offers accredited associates degrees in the arts and humanities, professional studies, and science. It offers one free course a year to reservation members 55 and older and provides education on issues like suicide, parenting, and AIDS. This year, it graduated a class of 40 students. But Dr. Carney said living out the mission to “provide a quality education grounded in Anishinabe values” is still an uphill battle, especially many of the students are discouraged from pursuing a higher education by friends and family.

We next listened to Bob Jourdain, an Ojibwe language instructor at the tribal college, who described his boarding school experience to us. When he was taken from his home and sent to a missionary run school in Carlisle Pennsylvania, he encountered the fate that the majority of Indian children from the 1800s to the mid 1970s faced. He described the emotional, physical, and sexual abuse that occurred in his school as well as the stripping of religion, culture, and language, which he was told was “the language of the devil, unfit for civilization.” Still, he credited that experience with teaching him how to read and study intensely and how to be tough, consistant, and to never give up. He went on to get a B.A. and masters degree in English and to work as a school counselor and grant writer. He now teaches at Leech Lake Tribal College, working to reverse the tragedy of language loss that has stemmed from the boarding school experience.

We spent the afternoon with Larry Aitken, a Professor of American Indian Studies at Itasca Community College. He described his teaching and learning experiences and shared with us his thoughts on knowledge, faith, pain, purpose, and poverty. “Money is good to have, but don’t make it your lifetime journey,” he warned us. “Being poor is when you do not have a belief in God.” He also asked is to give away the knowledge that we gain, especially the knowledge we gained on this trip.

On Monday night, a group of fifteen of us had the opportunity to sleep in a teepee on the property of Will, an Ojibwe craftsman. Although teepees were not traditionally used by the Ojibwe (they preferred birch bark wigwams), we had a wonderful time sleeping not-quite-under-the-stars.

On Tuesday, we traveled to the White Earth Reservation, the largest reservation in Minnesota, with more than 20,000 enrolled members. White earth was like Leech Lake Reservation (and different from the Red Earth Reservation) in its “checkerboard” composition, a result of allotment and land theft. It was different from what we experienced at those two reservations in its progressive social and environmental justice programs as well as some of its political workings.

We toured the headquarters of the White Earth Land Recovery Project and Native Harvest, both founded by member Dr. Winona LaDuke (who you may remember as Ralph Nader’s running mate). The mission of the WELRP is to recover the original land base of the White Earth Nation and restore traditional practices of sound land stewardship, language fluency, community development, and spiritual and cultural heritage. We were taken to the foundation for a new wind turbine that will provide energy to the headquarters and sell energy back to the grid. We also got to see one of many solar energy panels that have been installed at White Earth houses to reduce heating costs. Native Harvest exists to provide economic opportunity through fair trade, employment, and marketing for the Anishinaabeg in the region. We had a few moments with Dr. LaDuke who talked about the challenges of relocalizing food and energy on White Earth. “Folks are conditioned to believe that things aren’t going to pan out for them,” she said. “That’s a mark of oppression. Our strategy is to do it.” We learned about the greenhouses that are providing fresh vegetables to local schools, ate lunch at the Native Harvest Restaurant, and toured Native Harvest’s wild rice processing facility. At Dr. LaDuke’s request, we spent some time picking up trash off the side of the road between the processing facility and the restaurant.

We spent Tuesday afternoon and evening with Paul Schultz, a White Earth elder, and his incredibly eloquent 10th-grade daughter, Lyra. Paul spoke about traditional healing, and Lyra explained the history and healing properties of the jingle dress, in which she performed a dance for us. Paul also talked about the sacredness of wild rice to the Anishinabe, as well as its health benefits. The rice is now in jeopardy because the University of Minnesota has genetically modified it. If the seed of rice from test plots is transported by wind or in bird droppings to native plots, truly wild rice could disappear.

Wednesday morning, we headed to White Earths new tribal government offices, where we met with Joe Lagarde, an activist and board member of WELRP. He talked about the political corruption that has plagued White Earth and described the new constitution that has recently been drafted (partly to curb that corruption). He also showed us a fascinating video, in which Dr. Claire Hendrickson presented historical documents and scientific evidence to support the Anishinabe oral tradition and the existence of indigenous Americans in the east 10,000-12,000 years ago (which opposes the popular theory that they migrated across the Bering Strait during the last ice age). After the video, we had the opportunity to meet the tribal chair, Erma Vizenor, who spoke briefly on the issue of the blood quantum. She pointed out that blood quantum was a policy instituted by the U.S. government to solve “the Indian problem” by ensuring that true “Indians” would no longer exist within several generations. The new constitution determines tribal membership by descendency, as opposed to blood quantum, which is different than the other five tribes in the band of Chippewa White Earth belongs to. “Why would we cooperate with blood quantum?” Dr. Vizenor said. “I don’t want to see the Minnesota Chippewa disband, but we need to be progressive. We will not cooperate in our own demise.”

Joe Lagarde treated us to lunch at one of White Earth’s Casinos, where a few of us made “contributions” to the slot machines and then swore off gambling for the rest of our lives. It was a slightly bizarre end to an amazing few weeks. Tomorrow, we head home to Pennsylvania. Twenty-five hours on the road will be good for thinking about how to integrate this experience into our lives. The Ojibwe believe that everything in life is circular. Perhaps this isn’t the end at all, but an encounter and a people we will revisit, if not in person, then in our writings, our conversations, and our dreams.

The Sacred Drum

The Story of the Sacred Drum (adapted from Dr. Anton Treuer’s telling)

The mid 1800s was a time of extreme violence among Indian tribes and between those tribes and the United States government. In 1862, there was a major conflict between the Dakota and the US government. Two regiments were pulled away from the Civil War to completely evict the Dakota from Minnesota. During one government raid, a Dakota woman fled her encampment and was pursued by US soldiers. Eventually, she came to a lake. There, she heard the voice of the Great Spirit, who told her to go under water, and she would stay alive. She stayed under water for four days, as the soldiers continued to search for her. During that time, the Great Spirit gave her a dream. He said it was against his will for the Indian people to kill each other and he gave her a vision of a drum and said it would be a path to peace. She saw men seated around the drum and women surrounding them. Both were singing. This Great Spirit told her that the men around the drum should be men who killed Ojibwe, and that eventually, they would run out of men who had killed Ojibwe. After this vision, the spirit told her to leave the water, go to the soldiers’ camp, and break her fast. She went in, invisible to the soldiers, and ate in their mess tent. Then she returned to her people and relayed what had happened. Right away everyone believed her. They began to make the drum she described out of a washtub, but before it could be finished, the US soldiers came on another raid. When this happened, an Indian hit the washtub with a stick, and it immediately transformed into the drum. Upon hearing it, the soldiers fled.

On Saturday, our class got to attend a sacred drum ceremony for the Thunder Bird Drum at the East Lake Community. The ceremony was hosted by drum chiefs David Niib Abid and Mushkoob Abid on property that used to belong to the East Lake Ojibwe but had been seized by the government and turned into a wildlife preserve. The location was an incredibly beautiful place—a ridge overlooking Rice Lake, covered with lilac and swarming with dragon flies.

The ceremony, which had actually started the previous evening, consisted of many segments of traditional songs. In each song, a spirit was represented by a specific person. During some songs, people simply stood and bent their knees at the beet of the drum. For other songs, men, women, or both danced around the drum. There were several tobacco offerings to the drum, and the pipe was passed around the room multiple times.

During one of the breaks, Mushkoob Abid told us about the history of the East Lake community—how they had been homeless for a long time after they were removed from their land and how now many of the tribe members were scattered. He also took us to Sandy Lake, which is known for the terrible tragedy that occurred there in 1850. In an attempt to relocate Michigan and Wisconsin Ojibwe tribes to free up farmland, the United States government announced that Indians would need to travel to Sandy Lake, Minnesota to receive the annuity goods it had promised. Although the government said that the goods would arrive no later than October 25, it didn’t deliver them until December 3, hoping that the Indians would decide not to return to their homelands. Meanwhile, about 400 Ojibwe perished from illness, hunger and exposure—either waiting for the food or trying to get home. Mushkoob also showed us the dam where the Mississippi flowes into the lake, a spot that was teeming with giant Buffalohead fish.

Over the course of the day, there were two feasts. We sat down to a long table with hundreds of dishes on it—ranging from wild rice and fresh fruit to fried chicken and cherry pie. It was a true feast—like something out of medieval times.

The evening ended with a giveaway dance. We exchanged gifts and joined classmates and East Lake members for several dances around the drum.

"The Elder" by Lucy Green

He eats blueberries from a cottage cheese container,
bare toes peeking from a red cast
propped up by the footrest of his wheelchair.

This is the land he has known from boyhood.
The lake still reflects the steely clouds and cobalt sky.
The ferns unfurl on the dappled forest floor,
As they have every spring of his life.

Birdsong laces the breeze that ruffles the grass,
And he remembers hunting with his slingshot,
Plucking clean the lifeless wings,
Nibbling roasted meat from fragile bones.

Today the children sit inert in front of the TV,
They drug themselves unconscious.
They carry guns, and when they kill,
They kill each other.

The wind carries the smell of water,
And he remembers rowing to The Narrows,
Fasting on sacred ground, weakened with hunger,
Until creation filled his spirit with truth.

Today the young men are restless.
They look for purpose in gangs,
They seek relief in alcohol,
Their visions are induced by the flashing lights of the casino.

The taste of fish seasons the air,
And he remembers the walleye his grandmother prepared
Alongside the venison his grandfather provided.
Poverty never kept them from having enough.

Today everyone eats fry bread and potato chips.
They drink Coca-Cola and beer.
Their bodies inflate, their blood bears poison,
And their organs self-destruct.

The clouds cast contours on the grass,
And he remembers shadows on the wall of a wigwam,
Half imagined and half real,
As his grandmother told winter stories with her hands and lips.

Today, his people live in houses with locks on the doors.
They tell their children European stories in a European tongue,
Or they leave the storytelling to Hollywood,
And the young ones forget their ancestors.

A gap in the clouds admits the warmth of the sun in an instant,
And he remembers the heat of the rocks in the lodge,
The sensation of sweat and steam beading on his skin
As the pipe was passed from hand to hand.

Today, so many shun the sacred ceremonies.
The black book and black robe have made them fear the ancient ways.
Why do they dread the language of their hearts
when their children lie dead in the churchyard?

The blueberries are sweet on his tongue,
Just as they used to be when he picked them by the bucket.
A smile adds wrinkles to his creased face,
And the sadness passes from his eyes.

“There’s something in the air that’s coming back,” he says.
“I’m not sure what it is yet, but it’s good for everyone.”

Adventure, Tragedy, Baskets, and More

We left early Thursday morning for the Red Lake reservation, where we met up with Darwin Sumner for a hike to The Narrows, a remote shoreline where the two parts of the lake join. It is the most sacred site on Red Lake—a wild place often used for fasts and ceremonies.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature had a different plan. After contending with deep mud for an hour, we decided our vehicles couldn’t make it the remaining four miles to the trailhead. We turned around disappointed, though we did manage to spot a fisher—a weasel-like animal—crossing the road. We ended up spending a couple of hours eating and walking along the pebbly shore of the lake.

After lunch, we visited the Red Lake Tribal Council offices and met with Chairman Floyd Jourdain. He described the electoral form of government that operates on the reservation today along with the relationship the tribe has with the federal government.

We then piled into the vans and drove to the other end of the reservation—the Point in Ponemah, where we observed fisherman at work. We were joined by Greg Kingbird, a medicine man and spiritual leader. We gathered around him and heard stories of his boyhood and his reflections on the way life on Red Lake has changed in his lifetime. On the way home, we spotted both a black bear and a pair of eagles.

This morning, we drove to Leech Lake Tribal College, where Elaine Fleming gave us a presentation about environmental abuses in Indian territories both in the US and Canada. She then took us to the location of an environmental disaster on the Leech Lake reservation, the St. Regis Superfund site where chemicals from a wood treatment facility contaminated the ground, wells, lakes, and aquifer. As a child she remembers walking across this site and drinking, bathing, and playing in water contaminated with known toxins and carcinogens. Her brother, along with many others in her community, has since died of cancer. The tour ended on a more hopeful note, with a stop at the community garden Elaine started.

This afternoon gave us a much needed reprieve from the tragedy we witnessed this morning. We joined Garnet “Rocky” Mountain, a professor of Ojibwe arts and crafts, at his beautiful home that overlooks the Mississippi River. He walked us through the process of making black ash baskets—from stripping logs, to peeling paper thin bands of bark, to weaving the baskets. We all sat down to a campfire and s’mores after completing our baskets and watched a breathtaking sunset.

Red Lake Nation

On Monday, we packed our overnight bags and drove to the Red Lake Nation, which surrounds the largest freshwater lake in the United States. This reservation differs from Leech Lake (and most reservations in America) in that its leaders refused the system of allotment afforded by the Dawes Act; therefore, the entire reservation is owned by the tribe, rather than piecemeal chunks, and only members live there.

After stopping on the shore of the lake, we were distributed among host families in the towns of Little Rock, Red Lake, Redby, and Ponemah. Some students found themselves the guests of families with grandparents, parents, children, aunties, and uncles under one roof. Others were taken in by elders who lived alone or in the retirement home in Red Lake.

We enjoyed the company of traditional story tellers, school nurses, veterans, drum keepers, medicine men, teachers, and artists. Some students celebrated Memorial Day, attending a graveside ceremony with a fifteen gun salute. Others toured the reservation by car, stopping at sacred spots on the lake. Some visited the schools. Some listened to traditional stories and tales of Sasquatch spotting. Many watched TV and played with children.

Our home stays provided a new sense of perspective. We enjoyed forming relationships with people not unlike ourselves. We also saw firsthand some of the devastating effects of oppression, economic disempowerment, and stripping of land and language. Poverty was widespread. Trash littered yards and the sides of the road. Unemployment paired with a reliance on gambling was abundant. Gang graffiti—covered by layers of mismatched paint—blotched the sides of buildings. Poor nutrition, health problems like diabetes, and obesity were plentiful. Everyone we stayed with had lost numerous people they loved to murder, suicide, or drug overdoses. In spite of these tragedies, our hosts showered us with generosity and entertained us with their indefatigable senses of humor. When we left them just 24 hours after meeting, many of us were sad to go.

Today, we headed back to Red Lake to hear from Judy Roy, the former secretary of the Red Lake Tribal Council; Murphy Thomas, a cultural counselor at Red Lake High School; and Wilf Cyr, the Interim President of Red Lake Nation College. We were joined by a number of Red Lake High School students and their teacher Diane Schwanz, who prepared us Indian tacos for lunch and gave us a tour of their school. Our conversations revolved around preserving culture and language, fostering economic growth on the reservation, health care, and tribal government.

Wilf Cyr offered a fiery critique of indigenous peoples becoming nation states or “sovereign.” He said nation states, which have the ability to oppress and take land, only perpetuate violence. The attempted sovereignty of Indian nations, he said, would only lead them to be quashed by the larger nation states that surrounded them. Instead, he advocated for nationhood, something he says Red Lake Nation already possesses, as it has a language, culture, territory, land, and history. He warned of the dire consequences of the loss of language and called for an extreme solution—requiring all people on the reservation to learn the language and all business on the reservation to be conducted in that language. Language fluency, he said, should be the requisite characteristic for tribal membership, not blood quorum, which is the present policy (imposed by the US government and tribes).

Tonight we enjoyed a walleye cookout with what seemed to be the entire town of Bemidji (and surrounding towns) at an annual community fish fry. With full bellies, we returned to our dorm to catch up on journaling and sleep.

Old and New Ways

We have spent the larger part of the last few days on Leech Lake Reservation, partaking in a spiritual tradition—the sweat lodge—and a modern social event—the powwow.

On Friday, we sat down with Richard and Dennis Morrison, medicine men, who shared the seven teachings of the Mede society—truth, courage, kindness, wisdom, love, respect, and humility. We prepared ourselves physically (with a fast) and mentally for the sweat lodge—a purifying and healing ceremony conducted in a small dome heated by hot stones.

We then drove to the home of “Wild Bill,” who lent us his lodge. Several students selected stones to be used in the lodge, arranged them over kindling, and surrounded them in logs in a fire pit opposite the lodge.

After the fire was lit and the stones were heating, Richard took the women to the forest to gather cedar boughs. The women then lined the floor of the lodge with the cedar and strung it from the lodge to the fire—a path for the spirits to travel during the ceremony.

When the stones were ready, we climbed into the lodge—first the women, then the men. Smoldering rocks were placed in the center of the lodge, and we greeted them as grandmothers and grandfathers. Then the door was closed, and we were in complete darkness.

What followed was a deeply spiritual and intensely hot couple of hours. It does not suffice to say that sweet grass and bearroot were thrown upon the rocks, filling the lodge with fragrance, or that the water poured upon the stones turned to steam that condensed on our skin and eyelashes. There was much more to the lodge than listening to and singing along with the ancient songs and praying for the sick and suffering. Some things, words cannot describe.

After the lodge, Dennis, Richard, and their intern Bruce gave Ojibwe spirit names to all of us, and then we all enjoyed a feast of wild rice, walleye, fry bread, and cake prepared by Nancy Kingbird.

On Saturday, our group split. Some joined Richard and built a new sweat lodge on Nancy Kingbird’s property. Others joined a powwow attended by thousands. We watched as women in jingle dresses and men in exquisitely beaded and feathered regalia danced around drum circles. Children in elaborate dress competed for the title of “princess” and “brave.” We enjoyed Indian tacos and fry bread hamburgers and bought souvenirs from the vendors that surrounding the grounds. We even participated in a few intertribal dances.

Sunday brought us the opportunity to both revisit the powwow and attend another sweat, led by Dennis, in the lodge students had built on Saturday.

Our first week in Minnesota left us all amazed by the generosity of the Ojibwe people, by their dedication to their community, by their sense of humor, and by the vibrancy of their culture. We look forward to meeting and learning from many more people over the coming week.