MASKIHKÎYÂTAYÔHKÊWINA - MASHKIKIIWAADIZOOKEWIN: AND ANISHNAABE NARRATIVE MEDICINE IN THE RENEWAL OF ANCESTRAL LITERATURE

A dissertation submitted to the Committee of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts and Science

Trent University Naagaajiwanong : Peterborough, , © Copyright Jud Sojourn 2013 Indigenous Studies Ph.D. Graduate Program January 2014

ABSTRACT

maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina- mashkikiiwaadizookewin: Cree and Anishnaabe Narrative Medicine in the Renewal of Ancestral Literature

Jud Sojourn

This work represents an experiment in developing Cree and Anishnaabe nation- specific approaches to understanding Cree and Anishnaabe texts. The binding premise that guides this work has to do with narrative medicine, the concept that narrative arts, whether ancestral storytelling or current poetry have medicine, or the ability to heal and empower individuals and communities. As âtayôhkêwin in Cree and aadizookewin in Anishnaabemowin refer to ancestral traditional narratives, and while maskihkiy in

Cree, and mashkiki in Anishnaabemowin refer to medicine, maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina and mashkikiiwaadizookewin mean simply ‘narrative medicine’ in Cree and

Anishnaabemowin respectively.

After establishing a formative sense for what narrative medicine is, this work continues by looking at the bilingual Ojibwa Texts (1917, 1919) transcribed by William

Jones in 1903-1905 on the north shore of Lake Superior and in northern Minnesota

Anishnaabe communities, those spoken by Anishnaabe community members

Gaagigebinesiikwe, Gaagigebinesii, Midaasookanzh, Maajiigaaboo, and

Waasaagooneshkang. Then focus then turns to the bilingual Plains Cree Texts (1934) transcribed by Leonard Bloomfield at the Sweet Grass Reserve in and

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spoken by Cree community members nâhnamiskwêkâpaw, sâkêwêw, cicikwayaw, kâ- kîsikaw pîhtokêw , nakwêsis, mimikwâs, and kâ-wîhkaskosahk. The themes that emerge from looking at these texts when combined with an appreciation for the poetics of the

Cree and Anishnaabe provide the foundation for looking at newer poetry including the work of Cree poet Skydancer Louise Bernice Halfe, centering on the contemporary epic prayer-poem The Crooked Good (2007) and the works of Anishnaabe poet Marie Annharte Baker, focusing on Exercises in Lip Pointing (2003). Each poet emerged as having an understanding her own role in her respective nation as renewing the narrative practices of previous generations.

Understandings of the shape or signature of each of the four works’ unique kind of narrative medicine come from looking at themes that run throughout. In each of the four works the maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina – mashkikiiwaadizookewin, the narrative medicine they express occurs through or results in mamaandaawiziwin in

Anishnaabemowin or mamâhtâwisiwin, in Cree - the embodied experience of expansive relationality.

Keywords: Cree, Anishnaabe, nêhiyawêwin, Anishnaabemowin, narrative medicine, traditional stories, poetics, poetry, literary criticism, literary nationalism, Indigenous, indigenist.

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Acknowledgements

kinânaskomitinâw, miigwetch, thank you to all those who have helped with and are currently helping with this project. This being traditional joint Anishnaabe1 and

Haudenosaunee2 territory, appreciation is extended to these, and to those nations represented herein, the Cree3 Nation foremost. This work finds guidance in the principles derived from Anishnaabe and Cree ancestral-historical and ancestral- contemporary thinking. For that reason this work belongs to these Nations.

I would like to thank Neal McLeod for his guidance and friendship; he has been both hospitable and kind and is a pleasure to work with. His sense of humour is medicine to many as is his insightfulness and understanding of nêhiyawêwin, Cree and Cree narrative memory. I would like to thank Manitoulin elder and Trent

Professor Emerita Shirley Williams, Curve Lake elder and Trent Director of Studies

Gidagaamigizi, Doug Williams, Professor of Anishnaabemowin Rand Valentine, and

Sokaogon community member Omar Poler for inspiration related to Anishnaabemowin.

1 Anishnaabe means ‘human being’, or as Edie-Benton Benai in the Mishomis Book (1979) has it: ‘those lowered down’ (implying a celestial origin). Anishnaabek, or Anishnaabeg (plural) most commonly means ‘the people’, or more literally ‘the human beings’. ‘Anishnaabe’ is often heard on-reserve as well as Ojibwe (the proposed etymologies of ‘Ojibwe’ are many). ‘Anishnaabe’ herein includes those who have carried the historical moniker Minnesota Ojibwe, Chippewa, Eastern-Ojibwe, Mississaga, and Odawa. There is a newer etymology for Anishnaabe that comes from …Understanding Anishnaabemowin… (2012) by Caroline Helen Roy Fuhst. She gives us the definition for Anishnaabe as such: ‘It is obvious that this one is seen in his own way. He is seen expressing his heredity and birthright as the type of one who is identified as being from this place.’ (Roy-Fuhst 2012, 3)

2 Haudenosaunee means “The People of the Longhouse” and refers to the six nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy – Seneca (Western Door), Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk (Eastern Door) and Tuscarora.

3 For the sake of ease of reading and as it resonates with the common usage of the Cree among Cree people to refer to themselves as such (whereas Anishnaabeg say ‘Ojibwe’ to refer to themselves only rarely) the word Cree will appear most often herein alongside nêhiyaw ‘Cree Person’ and nêhiyawak ‘Cree People’. Cree is used herein as Cree people often tend to prefer the word contemporarily. One of the reasons for this is that the describing Cree people in the various dialects of are many. Some of these are nêhiyaw (singular for Plains Cree person), nîhithaw (singular for person), nîhinaw, and inni in Maskêko Cree.

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I would like to thank Thomas Olszewski, Mjikaning -Rama Anishnaabe visual artist for his conversation. Many of his ideas surrounding the renewal of Anishnaabe life and thought are represented here. I would like to thank William Kingfisher, Mjikaning –

Rama Anishnaabe visual artist and scholar for his shared experience and friendship; many of his ideas regarding conceptions of the land and the mystery resident even in urban environments and industrial landscapes are represented here. I would like to say nya:wenh to Patrick Rothyatonnyon for political concepts and insight. I would like to thank Neyaashiinigmiing – Cape Croker author, poet and editor Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm,

Metís author and professor Warren Cariou, Algonquin Professor and Ph.D. Director

Paula Sherman, and Haudenosaunee Mohawk Professor Dan Longboat for their willingness to guide this project. I would like to thank nbazgim Sarah Sandy, and

Chimnissing and Wisconsin families for their support, ideas, and openness. Finally I would like to extend my greatest thanks to the askiy, aki - the land herself - and to kihci- manitow, gizhemnado, the spirit of creation, the mystery.

kitoni kaki-miyo-âyâyek kahkiyaw niwâhkomâkaninân kiyawâw I hope all of you, our relations, are well. (nêhiyawêwin)

apegish mino-ayaayeg gakina nindinawemaaganiminaan giinawaa. I hope all of you, our relations, are well. (Anishnaabemowin)

pegish mnyaayeg kina ndinawemaaganiminaan giinwa. I hope all of you, our relations, are well. (Nishnaabemwin)

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Contents

Abstract ii Acknowledgments iv Table of Contents vi

Selected Glossaries nêhiyawêwin, Plains Cree viii Anishnaabemowin, Nishnaabemwin ix English and other miscellany xiii

1 Introduction

1.1 Aanii, Tânisi - Opening Words 1 1.2 Grounding Questions 11 1.3 Narrative Medicine in Depth 15 1.4 Approach and Emergent Inductive Method 23 1.5 Positionality 27

2 Kinship, the Living Earth, and Laughter: the Many Shades of Anishnaabe Poetics in Ojibwa Texts

2.1 The Poetics of Aadizookewin, Anishnaabe Ancestral Stories 34 2.2 The Poetics of Anishnaabemowin 38 2.3 Megasiáwa William Jones 47 2.4 Contributors to Ojibwa Texts 55 2.5 Layered Intertwined Worlds in Gaagigebinesiikwe Mrs. Marie Syrette’s ‘The Youth Who Died and Came Back to Life’ 60 2.6 Kinship and Land in Episode I of Gaagigebinesi’s ‘Wemiisaakwaa, Clothed in Fur’ 69 2.7 Killing One’s Brother: Reciprocal Relation in Episode III of Gaagigebinesi’s ‘Wemisaakwaa, Clothed-in-Fur’ 79 2.8 Lifelong Great Friendship in Gaagigebinesi’s ‘The Boy that Was Carried Away by a Bear’ 84 2.9 Anishnaabe Poetics in Ojibwa Texts 90 2.10 Ojibwa Texts Conclusions 93 2.11 The Future Possibilities of Ojibwa Texts 95

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3 Classical and Ancestral Narrative Knowing in Plains Cree Texts

3.1 What the Plains Cree Texts Mean to Cree Narrative Study 98 3.2 Plains Cree Texts 106 3.3 Leonard Bloomfield 110 3.4 Social Consciousness in Three Stories from the Plains Cree Texts 114 3.5 Kinship and Relation in kâ-kîsikaw pîhtokêw Coming Day’s ‘Man and Bear’ 125 3.6 Humour, Erotica, Family, and Mirrored Realities in sâkêwêw Adam Sakewew's ‘A Bony Spectre Abducts a Woman’ 136 3.7 Syllabics 146 3.8 Plains Cree Texts Conclusions 149

4 maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina: Narrative Medicine in Louise Halfe’s The Crooked Good

4.1 Louise Halfe’s Vision 157 4.2 How Bear Bones and Feathers and Blue Marrow Inform The Crooked Good 166 4.3 wâhkôhtowin and askiy - Relation and Earth 173 4.4 Realistic Poetics: tâpwêwin, debwewin (slight return) 180 4.5 âtayôhkan cihcipistikwân – Rolling Head 191 4.6 Deep Roots: New Literatures as Expressions of âtayôhkêwina 198 4.7 On tâpwêwin and the Layered Comparison of Different Translations 206 4.8 Louise Halfe Conclusions 211

5 mashkikiidibaajimowin: Narrative Medicine in Marie Annharte Baker’s Exercises in Lip Pointing

5.1 Medicine Lines 218 5.2 Relationality and the Land in “Stay Out Of The Woods” 240 5.3 The Mirror, The Extended Hand 243 5.4 Mapping Obstacles in “Got Something In The Eye” 246 5.5 Temperate Absurdity in the poem “Exercises in Lip Pointing” 251 5.6 Annharte Conclusions 262

6 Conclusions 276

Bibliography 295

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Selected Glossary : nêhiyawêwin, Plains Cree

In this glossary and throughout this work, except where specially noted, translations for nêhiyawêwin translations come from: Arok Wolvengrey, Freda

Ahenakew, Mary Emily Bighead, Elessar Wolvengrey nehiyâwêwin : Itwêwina - Cree :

Words. (2001), Neal McLeod Cree Narrative Memory (2007), Leonard Bloomfield Plains

Cree Texts (1934), Nancy LeClaire, Harold Cardinal, Emily Hunter, and Earle H. Waugh alperta ohci kêhtêhayak nêhiyaw otwêstamâkêwasinahikan - Alberta Elders' Cree

Dictionary (1998), Jean Okimâsis nêhiyawêwin paskwâwi-pîkiskwêwin - Cree Language of the Plains (2004), and creedictionary.com, 2010-2013 that compiles these listed sources. ahcâhk soul, spirit (rough translation). askiy Land, earth, soil, ground, universe, world.

âcimowina Life experience story, news, the telling of events. atâyôhkanak Traditional story persons, spirit, also spirit beings sometimes translated as grandmothers or grandfathers; (McLeod 2007, 101)

âtahyôhkêwina Spiritual history, sometimes translated as ‘sacred stories’ or ’legends’. (McLeod 2007, 101) cihcipistikwân ‘Rolling Head’ referring to the traditional story of the same name.

ê-kwêskît ‘Turn Around Woman’. Narrator of Louise Halfe’s The Crooked Good (2007). kêhtê-ayak Elders. kî-mamâhtâwisiwak “These gifted mysterious people of long ago” iyiniwak (Halfe 2008, 3) distant ancestors. kisê-manito The great spirit, the great mystery, God.

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mamâhtâwisiwin (The way of) appreciating one’s relation to the mystery; ‘tapping into the mystery’; (McLeod 2007, 104) maskihkiy- Storied medicine, narrative medicine, the medicine power âtayôhkêwin (envisioning, curative, empowering) of narrative or poetic thinking. mistanâskôwêw The nêhiyaw man who brought syllabics to the people. nêhiyaw Plains Cree person; nîhithaw - Woods Cree person; nîhinaw; inni - Maskêko Cree person. nêhiyawêwin . nêhiyâwiwin Creeness. pâkahkos Bloomfield translates this as ‘bony spectre’. It a the skeletal- appearing being in a distant side world of this world. It appears in sâkêwêw in Bloomfield (Etd.) 1934, 204-211. tâpwêwin Truth telling, aligning one’s own words and emotional projection with actuality. wâhkôhtowin Kinship with emphasis on extended family. wâhkôhtowin- Stories of a family member’s life experience. âcimowina

Selected Glossary : Anishnaabemowin/Nishnaabemwin

Except where specially noted, translations for Ojibwemowin words come from

Patricia Ningewance (Obizhigokaang - Lac Seul) Anishnaabemodaa: Becoming a

Successful Ojibwe Eavesdropper (1990), Talking Gookum’s Language (2004) and Pocket

Ojibwe (2009), John Nichols, Selam Ross (Cass Lake) and Earl Nyholm (Misi- zaaga’iganiing - Mille Lacs) A Concise Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe (2001), Richard

Rhodes Eastern Ojibwe-Chippewa-Ottawa Dictionary (1993) who relies heavily on Reta

Sands (Walpole Island) and Hap McCue (Wshkiigomaang - Curve Lake), Maude Kegg

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(Misi-zaaga’iganiing - Mille Lacs) Portage Lake: Memories of and Ojibwe Childhood

(1991), Irene Snache (Mjikaning - Rama) Dictionary (2005) Megasiáwa

William Jones (dialect is mostly Ft.William and Bois Forte) Ojibwa Texts (1917, 1919),

Diamond Jenness (Wasaksing - Parry Island Nishnaabemwin) and Shirley Williams

(Manido Mnis - Manitoulin Island) Gdi-nweninaa : Our Sound, Our Voice. (2002)

Eskintam Nishinaabemang Mzinagan (2005). Also, Rand Valentine’s Western Ojibwe

Dictionary: An Experimental Lexicon… (2010) contributes to the definitions that follow.

His lexicon includes a conjugation engine that is very useful in working with transitive among other features and brings together some of the work of Patricia

Ningewance (Lac Seul), Norman Quill (Red Lake), Liz McBride (Red Lake), James Keesic

(Red Lake), Nancy Thompson (Peguis, ), William Fobister (Grassy Narrows),

Richard Rhodes (who himself draws a great deal from Hap McCue (Curve Lake) and Reta

Sands (Walpole Island)), and John Nichols and Earl Nyholm (Misi-zaaga’iganiing - Mille

Lacs) among others.

aadizookaan(ag) Traditional story persons, spirits, traditional story, legend. (Alt. spelling aadisookaan). aadizookewin Ancestral story telling, traditional narrative practice. (Alt. spelling aadisookewin). achaak At Waasaksing, Parry Island the udjitchog (Jenness, 1935) was referred to in translation from the Nishnaabemwin as ‘the soul’. This property of being was explained by one of the conversation participants at the time (probably Pegamagabow, though Jenness unfortunately only cites conversation participants - he uses the anthropological term “informant” – at the beginning of the document) to reside generally in or around the heart and was considered the centre of intelligence. This word later appears in Edna Manitowabi’s

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Introductory Nishnaabemwin class (2006) at Trent University as aachak and jiichaag also translated as ‘the soul’ in the context of a four directions teaching. Alternate spellings encountered have been ojiichag referring to the third person possessive or the obviative (4th person). aki Land, earth, soil, ground, universe, world, existence. akiwenzi Elder man, also akiwenzii. It is very possible that ‘aki’ in ‘akiwenzi’ refers to the earth, possibly to an old man’s bending towards or becoming more connected to the earth over time.

Anishnaabe(g) ‘Human being’, ‘person’, ‘one lowered down’ (Benton – Benai, 1979) (suggesting celestial origin). Also nizhishin “good, fine, useful, unbroken, beautiful” may be shortened to “nishin” and combined with aabe an older word seen in naabe ‘man’ to mean “good, fine, useful, unbroken, beautiful person”. Caroline Helen Roy Fuhst has recently offered the most literal and direct definition to date: “It is obvious that this one is seen in his own way. He is seen expressing his heredity and birthright as the type of one who is identified as being from this place.” (Roy-Fuhst 2012, 14) This last definition though not necessarily definitive, may be so far the most accurate.

Anishnaabemowin Anishnaabe language, central. The eastern dialect of Anishnaabemowin is called Nishnaabewin. In the west it is sometimes known as Saulteaux.

Anishnaabewaki Anishnaabe traditional territory. The lands where Anishnaabeg traditionally and contemporarily live and have stewardship responsibilities over. debwewin Truth telling: aligning one’s own words and emotional intent with actuality. dibaajimowin Nishnaabemwin/Anishnaabemowin referring to the narrative genre having to do with sharing news or telling about events. gichi-anishnaabe(g) Elder. gizhemanido/ The kind spirit, the great mystery, the creative principle, the gzhemnado creator. ‘Gzhemnado’ is the spelling is Mississaga, from around Curve Lake. The spelling used in the west through northern Wisconsin and Minnesota is Gizhemanido. There is a long

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conversation happening in Anishnaabewaki regarding the meaning of this word, and the extent to which the concept may or may not have existed prior to missionization. The conversation has over the years served a political purpose, as a people already possessing the concept of divinity in the eyes of the church would require no missionization. goozabanjigew A seer, one of the traditional Anishnaabe medical practitioners’ stations. (Jenness 1935, 60). jessakanid Diamond Jenness’ (Nishnaabemwin – Wasaksing/Parry Island) Shaking Tent practitioner. Jiisikaan in double is the shaking tent. A shaking tent practitioner is a medicine person specializing in diagnoses and in establishing social connections between communities of Anishnaabeg and the greater interlaced networks of interrelationality. mamaandaawiziwin The way of appreciating one’s relation to the mystery; ‘looking at the wonderment of the mystery’ (Williams 2006); relating to, drawing from or acknowledging universal enigmatic vitality and expansive relationality. mashkikiiw- Storied medicine, narrative medicine, the medicine power aadizookewin whether of an envisioning, curative, or empowering nature of narrative or poetic thinking. Also mshkiikiiwaadizookewin (Eastern) and aadizookaan-mashkikiiwin or aadizookaan- mashkikiiwin (Western/Central). mnjikaning ‘The place of the fences’. Rama/Orillia, Ontario. At the narrows between the Rama reserve and the town of Orillia, at the south end of Lake Simcoe are the remnants of fish weirs to which the name mnjikaning refers. mnobimaadiziwin The way of good life or good living, referring to how the ancestors sought meaningful, good life rich in love, laughter, thankfulness and living on the land. It is often explained in part at least in themes of the seven grandfather teachings. mashkiki Medicine. In Anishnaabe traditional sense this includes medicines of ascertaining knowledge, curing and healing as well as empowerment, though these all are intertwined and influence one another. nagaajiwanong Peterborough, Ontario. This is most often seen translated as ‘the

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place at the end of the rapids.’ It may more literally translate as ‘The place where it comes together is left behind’ referring obliquely to the action of a place where the water moves quickly below a confluence. Fon Du Lac , Wisconsin shares this name also due to the nature of the water there. ningaabii’an The western wind is blowing. from Ojibwa Texts: ‘The Birth of Nenabohzo’ (Waasaagoneshkang in Jones (Etd.) 1919, 3)

Nishnaabemwin Eastern Ojibwe Language, spoken on Manitoulin this is referred to sometimes as Odawa. It also refers to the Rama, Curve Lake, Parry Island, Deer Point, Christian Island and other dialects of Eastern Ojibwe, generally distinguished from Southwestern Ojibwe by the incidence of syncope or ‘vowel dropping’. odemin giizis “Strawberry moon” (usually July); Manoominii giizis “wild rice moon” (usually August) is the time for harvesting wild rice. Others include Ziiziibakode giiziis, “maple sugar moon” (usually March); Kitigaan giizis, “planting moon” (usually May). These moons constitute a general map for the ‘yearly round’, the basic pattern describing minobimaadiziwin traditional life practices. The yearly round is by no means formalized and differs not only from location to location, but year to year, in accordance with need.

Ojibwemowin A contemporary term which conveniently refers to all of the dialects of Ojibwe or Anishnaabe language including Odawa spoken on Manitoulin Island, Eastern Ojibwe spoken on Georgian Bay, Chippewa or Minnesota Ojibwe sometimes referred to as Southwestern Ojibwe and Saulteaux among others. wiiyo The body, having its own independent agency, will, even awareness and knowledge, apart from the aachak and jiibom.

Selected Glossary: English and other miscellany

Algonquian A delineated by Leonard Bloomfield that recognizes some forty independent languages including Cree language, Anishnaabe language.

Ganoozhigaabe Algonkin elder brother. Translated commonly as ‘the one who comes only from speech’ or as in the Gluskabe ‘the one from nothing’.

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Kluskap (Abenaki, Mi’kmaq), named by missionaries ‘the Liar’ in an attempt to align him/her with the devil. This word translates as ‘The one from nothing’, ‘the one from something’, ‘the one who came from speech alone.’ Also “the one who made himself from the dust left after creation.” Odzihodo in Western Abenaki.

Innu An Algonauquian people of Eastern and Labrador whose language and conceptual foundations are similar to those of the Cree nations. Innu homeland is called Nitassinan.

Makataimeshekiakiak (Meskwaki Sauk language) “Blackhawk” Community Leader of the 1832 Blackhawk Uprising that took place in what is now present day Southern Wisconsin.

Menapûs “Good Rabbit” referring by convention to the white, winter phase of the snowshoe hare, or to a white rabbit; one of the Names for the Menomini Elder Brother, due to his preferring to appear in this form often.

Menominee Alt. spellings Minominii, Menominii. The first people residing in present day northeastern Wisconsin and western Michigan, the language and conceptual nature of which resembles Anishnaabemowin and Anishnaabe concepts very closely. Much of the current Menominee writing uses a diacritical mark rich orthography created by Leonard Bloomfield. In addition to recording Cree stories in the language he also recorded Menominee and Fox stories in these respective languages, which were printed in separate volumes.

Mi’kmaq The plural form of Mi’kmaw meaning ‘human being’. Mi’kmaq live primarily in present day northern and . The Mi’kmaq are relatives of the Anishnaabeg and Cree, collectively understood to share the same original language and conceptual foundation.

Oji-Cree An Algonquian nation; Anishinini (plural Anishininiwag); Severn Ojibwa. Of Ontario and Manitoba.

Penobscot The Eastern Abenaki of present-day Southern Maine. The self-referent is Alnu meaning ‘human being’ or Alnombak (plural) meaning ‘human beings’. The Penobscot are relatives of the Nishnaabe of Ontario and of the other nations of the of which they historically participated

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in. Penawapskewi means those of the descending ledges referring to a part of the Penobscot river near Old Town. (Maine)

Saulteaux Western Anishnaabe or Ojibwe Nations, living nearby and with Cree and metís people.

Three Fires The Odawa Nation of Manitoulin Island, Anishnaabeg, and Potawatomi of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Wabanaki Meaning ‘people of the dawn land in Nishnaabemwin and Abenaki language, this confederacy was bounded in the south by the Powathan confederacy in the southwest by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

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1 Introduction

1.1 Aanii, Tânisi - Opening Words

Like divining the flow and pattern of underground river ways, this work looks for the thematic currents that bind older and newer Cree and Anishnaabe âtayôhkêwin - aadizookewin, sacred stories, and âcimowina – dibaajimowin, spoken literatures, with newer writing. Maps of some of these currents emerge from looking at the oldest and most extensive bilingual nêhiyawêwin Plains Cree – , and

Anishnaabemowin Southwestern Ojibwe – texts – the Plains Cree

Texts (1934) and the Ojibwa Texts (1917, 1919) of Lake Superior respectively.4 The former set of texts represents the complement to the more widely known Sacred Stories of The Sweet Grass Cree (1930). The seven orators, the seven original authors of the bilingual nêhiyawêwin-English Plains Cree Texts (1934) recorded and edited by linguist

Leonard Bloomfield from the Sweet Grass Reserve in Saskatchewan were nâhnamiskwêkâpaw – He Is Standing Bowing (like a nod) His Head - Louis Moosimin, sâkêwêw – He Is Coming Into View - Adam Sakewew; Alt. (He) Comes Into View sîsîkwâyôw – It Is Hailing, kâ-kîsikaw pîhtokêw – Coming Day; Alt. He Who Is Day

Entering, nakwêsis - Mrs. Coming Day, mimikwâs – Butterfly - Simon Mimikwas, and kâ-wîhkaskosahk – ‘She Who Is Burning It So As To Smudge’ - Maggie Achenam.5

4 The greatest archive of traditional stories remains elders, artists and the people themselves.

5 These are not listed in the preface of the work as is the case with the Ojibwa Texts, but appear each at the beginning of the texts attributed to those authors, and so appear sporadically throughout. Neither does Bloomfield relate much of their personage or character.

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The later set of texts, the Ojibwa Texts comes from the Lake Superior and related

Northern Minnesota watershed regions, and though they are publicly available6, these texts are out of print and not widely known. The five orators, that is the five original authors of the bilingual Anishnaabe-English Ojibwa Texts recorded and edited by

Meskwaki and European descent linguistic anthropologist Megasiáwa William Jones were: Gaagigebinesiikwe, 'Forever-Bird Woman', Marie Syrette of Lake Nipigon, northeast of Thunder Bay and Fort William, Ontario; Gaagigebinesii, 'Forever Bird' of the area including the Kanustiquia River over to Baawiting, Sault St. Marie;

Midaasookanzh 'Ten Claw' of Rainy River, Red Lake, and Bois Forte7 - Nett Lake

Asabiikone-zaaga`iganiing, Lake Vermilion Onamanii-zaaga'iganiing, Deer Creek;

Waasagoonekang8 'He that leaves the imprint of his foot shining in the snow' of Rainy river, Rainy Lake, Lake of The Woods, and Pelican Lake near Bois Forte and Maajiigaaboo

'He begins to rise (to his feet)' of Bear Island at Leech Lake. (Ojibwa Texts 1917, xvi-xix)

The thematic topography and narrative approaches that arise from close readings of these texts inform understandings of newer texts – in this case the poetry of

6 Ojibwa Texts Stable Url: Part I http://www.archive.org/details/ojibwatextscoll07jonerich as of June 24, 2013. Ojibwa Texts Stable Url: Part II http://www.archive.org/details/ojibwatextscoll00unkngoog as of June 24, 2013.

7 These three smaller communities make up Bois Forte, which itself for those interested in the lay of the land is north of Duluth and west of Thunder Bay near and around Lake Vermillion. Nett Lake is farther back in the bush northwest of Lake Vermillion. Red Lake, Upper and Lower is farther west still, about half way between Winnipeg and Minneapolis just north of Bimidji. Leech Lake is just south of Bimidji. Lake of the Woods is near Red Lake to the north. Rainy River is a small community on the Rainy River that opens into nearby Lake of the Woods from the southeast. The Kanustiquia River runs from Thunder Bay more or less northwest to Dog Lake.

8 This word if scripted as waasaagonekang or waasagonekang instead of waasaagooneshkang or waasagoonekang would indicate shining or giving off light without referencing snow directly. The penultimate syllable ‘ka’ could be a shortened version of ‘-kaa’ which when combined with the place indicator ‘-ng’ would render the whole meaning as ‘where it is shining with great intensity’, a somewhat different and more intuitively accurate meaning than ‘he that leaves an imprint of his foot shining in the snow’.

3 contemporary nêhiyaw9 author Louise Halfe and contemporary Anishnaabe author

Marie Annharte Baker (Annharte). Through identifying approach, theme and perspective, notably in Louise Halfe’s The Crooked Good (2007), and Annharte’s

Exercises In Lip Pointing (2003) common to the older âtayôhkêwin - aadizookewin, traditional stories and âcimowina – dibaajimowin ‘the telling of events’, this work proposes a way of approaching text, perceiving newer and older texts both as colors or shades on a far greater single continuum of narrative practice. The Plains Cree Texts’ and the Ojibwa Texts’ orator-authors renewed the literatures of the ancestors that went before them, âtayôhkêwin – aadizookewin and âcimowina – dibaajimowin in their own right, just as Louise Halfe and Annharte renew ancestral literatures now. In Centering

Anishninaabeg Studies (2013) the three editors in a co-authored introduction speak of the importance of both aadizookewin and dibaajimowin in Anishnaabe understandings of literature, past and present:

To illustrate this for a moment, take the Anishnaabeg Creation Story, which tells of our creation, time on Turtle Island, migration from the east, and path into the future. It is made up of a vast collection of stories that embody history, law, and many experiences and perspectives. These live, change and grow through continuous retellings, constituting a dynamic narrative practice and process by a people. It is often said that there are as many versions of the Creation Story as there are storytellers - all contribute to the understandings of who we are. The Creation story therefore is both aadizookaanag and dibaajimowin. Both concepts are necessary parts of Anishnaabeg narrative tradition. Together they are like maps, or perhaps instructions, that teach us how to navigate the past, but at the same time inform our present and guide our future. Aadizookaanag and dibaajimowinan are ultimately about creation and

9 Cree convention does not require capitalization either at the beginning of sentences or for the names of people or places. The effect of this suggests something of Cree thought, a kind of pride-through autonomous interrelated independence. Convention in Anishnaabemowin tends to follow formal English more closely (though not axiomatically) and at those points in this text where capitalization differences seem likely to distract the reader they have been synchronized to either one mode or the other depending on contextual aesthetics.

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re-creation. We believe that all of our stories include and encompass senses of Aadizookaanag and dibaajimowinan and together form a great Anishinaabeg storytelling tradition. (Doerfler, Sinclair and Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark (Eds.) 2013, 12, italics theirs)

In this way we find that contemporary narrative arts like past storytelling at times combine life experience and stories of family with stylization or content more in agreement with expectations of sacred stories. Doerfler, Sinclair and Kiiwetinepinesiik

Stark point out that it is often the two working together - aadizookewin (âtayôhkêwina is the sister concept in nêhiyawêwin) and dibaajimowin (âcimowina is the sister concept in nêhiyawêwin) - that create vibrant and vital narrative consciousness.

Following the threads of conversation surrounding the character and texture of stories through to the present casts contemporary poetry in a new light. The new poetry would seem as in the case of Louise Halfe’s work to be part of the poet’s efforts to renew ancestral thinking and story-craft, acting in its own right as an innovated

âtayôhkêwina with âcimowina, or the life experiences of her family as a binding current.

Annharte’s work has aadizookewin-resonant poetics although it fits closer the narrative mode of dibaajimowin, or the telling of events, having to do with happenings on a societal level as much as those within her own family and community. In either case the authors respectively renew ancestral thought forms while practicing a narrative artistry that heals, empowers and expands the visioning potential of both writer and readership.

The themes emerging out of close readings of the Ojibwa Texts have to do with layered intertwined worlds, kinship, land, reciprocal relation, and lifelong great friendship, while the themes coming from the Plains Cree Texts centre around social consciousness, kinship, relation, humour, erotica, family, and mirrored realities. These

5 two sets of themes inform approaches to understanding Annharte’s and Louise Halfe’s work, thereby attempting an experiment in literary criticism specific to the Cree and

Anishnaabe nations. They also provide a map for exploring similarities in narrative across nations.

The foundational concept binding all of the complementary elements of this conversation has to do with the idea of stories possessing a power unique to story-craft, what may be called narrative medicine, literally translatable as: mashkikiiwaadizookewin in Anishnaabemowin and maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina in nehiyawewin Plains Cree, meaning ‘the medicine of traditional or sacred10 stories’. In the case of Annharte’s writing, a second term mashkikiidibaajimowin appears delineating narrative medicine related to traditional “sacred” stories from narrative medicine involving the traditional storytelling genre of ‘the telling of events’ or dibaajimowin.

Through an enhanced understanding of self within expansive kinship and relationality, narrative practice in Anishnaabe context adjusts the soul, shadow and body into balance.11 As this comes into heightened resolution, the individual may better

10 The word sacred because of its nebulousness can be misleading depending on the context in which it appears. The stories herein referred to as âtayôhkêwina and aadizookewin in Cree and Anishnaabemowin respectively are traditional stories having to do with beings that possess at times significant medicine power, but that more importantly orient the reader in perspectives that respect expansive relationality. The word sacred in English often implies a sanctimoniousness devoid of erotica, humor, a sterile reverence. The stories of the Ojibwa Texts, the Plains Cree Texts and the writing of Louise Halfe and Marie Annharte Baker present humor and erotica as contributing to sacrality.

11 This tripartite model of human health is original to Georgian Bay, and continues to be a model in use among Anishnaabe medicine people of the region’s nations today. It has to do with the concept that a human being is made up of 1) wiiyo, flesh or body, 2) jiichag, soul or essence residing near a person’s heart and having much to do with rationality and a person’s ability to think coherently, and 3) jiibom, or shadow, a quality of perceptive awareness that resides in and around a person’s head and has much to do with intuition. The jiibom can travel some distance from the body in dreams or altered states of consciousness. Illnesses such as schizophrenia or alcoholism may be

6 perceive himself or herself as one-and-part with the living fabric of existence, a kind of relationality-awareness describable in Anishnaabemowin as mamaandaawiziwin or in nêhiyawêwin as mamâhtâwisiwin, literally translated as ‘the art or way of wonder or wonderment’. Manitoulin Elder and professor of Nishnaabemwin Shirley Williams has translated mamaandaawiziwin as ‘looking with wonderment at the mystery’ (Williams,

2006), while professor and student of Cree thought and language Neal McLeod has translated the sister concept in nêhiyawêwin, mamâhtâwisiwin, as ‘tapping into the mystery’ (McLeod 2007, 104). mamaandaawiziwin – mamâhtâwisiwin has been described as ‘having supernatural or magical powers or abilities’, but these kinds of definitions aside from being archaic may also be misleading in their two-dimensionality.

In this work the two definitions that of Shirley Williams meaning ‘looking with wonderment at the mystery’ and Neal McLeod ‘tapping into the mystery’, combine to mean experiencing the wonderment of appreciating one’s contextual relationality within the great mystery of existence. The work of the Plains Cree Texts authors, the

Ojibwa Texts authors, and the work of Annharte and Louise Halfe all forward this understanding and the inherent balance of mind and being it facilitates. The two sets of texts do this in different ways often involving humor, healthy eroticism, abstract imagery and dynamically elaborate unfolding of events. Anishnaabe scholar Basil

Johnston in Honour Earth Mother (2003) relates mamâhtâwisiwin - mamaandaawiziwin, to the experience of expansive relationality: characterized and treated based on the understanding that a person suffering from one of these illnesses is expressing symptoms related to the separation of one of the three tripartite elements from the other. Treatment then may have to do with bringing all three elements wiiyo, jiichag and jiibom back into balance with one another, something that narrative praxis may assist in doing. (Jenness 1935, 18, corroborated by Manitowabi 2006 and Vecsey 1983, 59-63)

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What the ancestors learned of the land, the wind the fire and the waters, the beetles the hawks, the wolverines and the otters is revelation, no less than is dream. .. Our ancestors watched and listened. The land was their book. The land has given us our understandings, beliefs, perceptions, laws, customs. It has bent and shaped our notions of human nature, conduct and the Great Laws. The land has given us everything. It is more than a book. (Johnston 2003, xiii)

In this passage, Johnston ties land to relationality and also to text, suggesting that the original source for Anishnaabe knowledge and perceptive ability comes from the land itself. This situates humanity within the land as opposed to apart from it and is the selfsame practice from which both the Plains Cree Texts and the Ojibwe Texts originate.

The result of this mamâhtâwisiwin – mamaandaawiziwin experience is to bring oneself into balance with the agentic forces resident in one’s surroundings, actualizing as a result improved overall wellbeing. This motion of potentials, mamâhtâwisiwin – mamaandaawiziwin correcting imbalance when actuated by story, defines mashkikiiwaadizookewin – maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina, or narrative medicine.

As authors practicing ancestral narrative medicine, where such refers to nation specific understandings of medicine, both the author-orators of the Plains Cree Texts, and The Ojibwa Texts and equally so the poets Annharte and Louise Halfe heal and empower in ways which each generation and those successive generations in between have repeatedly renewed. "We are the ancestors now," said eleven-year-old activist

Takaiya Blainey of West Coast Sleeaman First Nation in a recent interview with Teokasin

Ghosthorse on First Voices Indigenous Radio.12 As they will be looked at as ancestors by

12 First Voices Indigenous Radio, firstvoicesindigenousradio.org. A partner site to WBAI radio New York City with Teokasin Ghosthorse. Program Archives, Jan 31, 2013. (17:00 -) Free downloadable mp3.

8 future generations of Cree and Anishnaabeg, these authors, all spoken, continue to seek the same final result – the continued emergent wellbeing of their respective nation’s people, actualized through a renewal not necessarily of a canon of stories, but of a language and storytelling practice that might best enable those future generations to heal, empower, enhance vision, and reorient perspective.

As traditional Anishnaabe or Cree medicine is not limited to healing alone, but includes the ability to envision possibly beyond the predicted confines of a given circumstance, the concept of narrative medicine that appears herein also is not limited in this way. That is, a medicine person does more than heal: they also seek knowledge which comes most often in the form of broadened or reoriented perspective which is then used to diagnose illness and advise action. Storying practice, whether in the form of older textual narrations or newer poetry, enacts narrative medicine as it orients, flavors, directs and shapes perspective. Essential to narrative medicine also is the idea that poetics catalyze vision, bring about healing and contribute to the empowerment of individuals and communities. Narrative medicine involves the orientation and reorientation of perception as much as healing, as well as how these may affect the well being of the greater nêhiyaw and Anishnaabe extended family communities and nations.

In In the Belly of a Laughing God: Humour and Irony in Native Women’s Poetry

(2011) Jennifer Andrews relates that to assume humor to be simple or unimportant in

Indigenous literature would be incorrect (9). Instead she goes on to illustrate at length,

9 that humor plays a critical role in native women’s poetry by facilitating a conceptual space where difficult topics can be talked about with relative comfort. The cliché that laughter is the best medicine applies very much to Cree and Anishnaabe narrative medicine whose ancestral originators expressed a special expertise in erotic humor as will become apparent in Gaagiigebinesi’s ‘Wemiisaakwaa - Clothed in Fur’, (Ojibwa Texts

1919, 207-240). This is implicit throughout the Ojibwa Texts (1917, 1919) which relate even a version of the Anishnaabe earthdiver story that has humorous sexual elements, most often omitted from formal tellings. This version appears in ‘Nenabozhoo slays

Toad-Woman, the Healer of the Manidos’ (Waasaagooneshkang, Ojibwa Texts 1917,

145-158). Implicative of this also might be the assertion that sexuality has healing value and so erotica becomes entwined in ancestral narrative medicine practices. In the

Plains Cree Texts erotic humor shows up in ‘A Bony Spectre Abducts a Woman’

(sâkêwêw - Adam Sakewew in Bloomfield (Etd.) 1934, 204-211) among other narratives.

This conversation respects a Cree – Anishnaabe parallelism, emphasizing similar language and the longstanding alliance between nations. In doing so, a comparison of themes across these two nations’ narrative practices allows for the illumination of both similarities and differences in thought and aesthetic preference. What’s more, this conversation de-emphasizes the U.S. – Canadian border. Instead, in the spirit of the Jay

Treaty and unifiers like John Tootoosis (refer to Norma Sluman and Jean Cuthand

Goodwill’s John Tootoosis : Biography of a Cree Leader (1982)) it focuses on the continuity of Anishnaabe and Cree nationalities existing across externally imposed nation-state demarcations. Finally this conversation focuses on ideas existing across

10 temporality, observing and representing time in a malleable fashion, one more compatible with Cree and Anishnaabe traditional conceptions of time. In this way, older texts emerge as current and relevant to contemporary Cree and Anishnaabe literary nationalism, new directions in nation-specific literary criticism, and understandings of

Indigenous literatures.

In addition to thematic and traditional story genre, Anishnaabemowin and nêhiyawêwin affect the poetics of past and current Anishnaabe and Cree narrative practice. Due to the way in which languages encode ideas, each language makes it easier to think certain kinds of thoughts. Speaking about the nature and importance of

Anishnaabemowin, Anton Treuer in ‘Ge-onji-aabadak Anishinaabe-inweweinan – ‘That for such a reason it will be useful, I call to you in an Anishnaabe way’13 (2006) cites the

Sweetgrass Language Council’s Declaration on Indigenous Languages

(1994):

Our Native language embodies a value system about how we ought to live and relate to each other… It gives a name to relations among kin, to roles and responsibilities among family members, ties with the broader clan group… Now if you destroy our language, you not only break down these relationships, but you also destroy other aspects of our Indian way of life and culture, especially those that describe man’s connection with nature, the great spirit, and the order of other things. (Sweetgrass First Nations Language Council 1994, 1, in Treuer 2006, 1)

Resonantly, Anishnaabemowin and nêhiyawêwin render thoughts related to expansive relationality and a vibrant living universe more accessible. Language-bound ideological

13 Many scholars in Indigenous studies look forward to a day when articles, books and other academic work will be available in Indigenous languages. This article is a move towards Anishnaabemowin centered publishing created in the spirit of Anton Treuer’s interest in language immersion as a teaching/learning approach. For that reason Treuer does not translate the article or its title. This translation is provided here for continuity with the bilingual emphasis of this work on the whole and is not definitive.

11 paths-of-least-resistance orient the perspective of the reader or listener so as to better understand the broad arrays of relations extant in reality. In the case of both nêhiyawêwin and Anishnaabemowin, these languages have a woven-in poetic quality.

Consider for example that in Anishnaabemowin ‘dibik-giizis’ , ‘moon’ in English, means roughly ‘night-sun’; ‘waawashkeshi’ or ‘deer’ likely refers to the flashing of light made by a deer’s tail as it leaps; ‘ininiatig’ or ‘maple tree’ means roughly ‘the tree of man’ likely referring to the support it gives to human beings through its gift of sap, a boon to travelers stricken with thirst and to those who make syrup and sugar. These are relatively apparent encodings, and deeper meanings are far more subtle and come from contextual framing of ideas appearing amidst a wash of other ideas. When compounded, meaning-encoded phrasings, words or concepts shape perspective poetically as do the more intentional poetics resident in older stories and new writings.

In this way, both nêhiyawêwin and Anishnaabemowin facilitate poetics perceptions that ultimately catalyze an awareness of expansive relationality. Considerable time and attention will be paid in the following pages to close translations of older texts so as to bring out the poetics both intentional and encoded of anishnaabemowin and nêhiyawêwin.

1.2 Grounding Questions

Older traditions of oratory as in those appearing in the Ojibwa Texts (1917, 1919) and the Plains Cree Texts (1934) and now in the contemporary poetry of Annharte and

Louise Halfe influence and reflect both individual and community perspectives. These

12 praxes of narrative result in community and individual empowerment by allowing for the authorship of perspectives and interpretation of events on community terms. As the surrounding land is peopled by stories of family and ancestry, individuals acquire a strong sense of home. This shared history, between âtayôhkêwina - aadizookewin and audience gives the readership the sense that they are 'coming home' when the story is told.14

This work recognizes the poetry, resilience, and unique consciousness of

Anishnaabe and Cree authors, orators, and artists of contemporary-ancestral narrative in all genres. Long traditions of storytelling, visual arts and music have yielded narrative practice, itself catalyzing the ability to envision worlds, to reorient perspectives, and to shape consciousness itself. These storying traditions inherit to communities the power to transform perception, thereby at times transmuting desperation to possibility while sublimating confinement to liberation.

Cree and Anishnaabe respect for autonomy is characteristically strong and extends to all creation – animals, storms, children, even stones and dreams appear as intrinsically important and inherently vital. Accordingly Leanne Simpson stated in a recent interview: “Anishnaabe culture had a very high respect for individual diversity and individual self-determination and for following those dreams and for following those visions and it was a supportive collective society around that and i think its

14 This feeling is resonant also with Gregory Scofield’s Singing Home The Bones (2005) and Julie Cruikshank’s Life Lived Like a Story: Life Stories of Three Native Yukon Elders (1990).

13 important to reclaim that” (Simpson, 2012).15 So one grounding question has to do with the idea of autonomy as communicated by the older texts and newer poetry. That is, how do Cree and Anishnaabe authors and orators communicate unique conceptions of autonomy and how does this influence narrative medicine alongside community well being? In other words, what are some of the composite elements of mashkikiiwaadizookewin – maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina, or narrative medicine?

Tempered by playfulness, Anishnaabe and Cree narrative artistry has cultivated among other skills, the ability to influence perception, consciousness, and abstract thinking. As a result, the adroit conceptual practices that emerge from ancestral oratory contribute in the present day to a heightened individual and community sense of intuition, innovation, adaptation and awareness. By imparting the power to autonomously reorient perspective, the contemporary continuation of ancestral narrative artistry has become central to ensuring Anishnaabe and Cree future self- determination. In other words, authorship of story equals at least in part, authorship of fate. This leads to another grounding question: How does mashkikiiwaadizookewin – maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina actualize individual and community wellbeing?

Conceptual processes involved in narrative medicine appear oftentimes as both adaptive and recursive. We exist as aspects of creation framing understandings of other aspects of creation - a kind of living, circling set of currents in a greater confluence of sub-currents. Cree poet Louise Bernice Halfe in her work The Crooked Good (2007)

15 Full citation: Episode 19, Leanne Simpson speaks about her book Dancing on Our Turtle's Back : Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence and a New Emergence (2012). Interview by Ryan McMahon, redmanlaughing.com. May 10, 2012, (30: 15).

14 invokes mahmâtâwisiwin as follows: “These gifted mysterious people of long ago, kayâs kî-mamâhtâwisiwak iyiniwak” (Halfe 2007, 3), Able to reveal the “wonderment of the mystery” through mamâhtâwisiwin – mamaandaawiziwin, narrative invigorates the soul of the listener, bringing consciousness to bear on the mystery of existence. The importance of this narrative effect catalyzes the well being of Cree and Anishnaabe people. This leads to another grounding question related to the previous: what is the role of mamâhtâwisiwin and mamaandaawiziwin in mashkikiiwaadizookewin – maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina, narrative medicine? In the case of Annharte's work specifically: what is the role of mamaandaawiziwin in mashkikiiwaadizookewin and mashkikiidibaajimowin renewal? And, in the case of Louise Halfe’s work, what is the role of mamâhtâwisiwin in maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina renewal?

Again, this conversation looks for themes and currents of ideas present in the older Ojibwa Texts and Plains Cree Texts. Understandings of thematic patterns serve to inform understandings of new poetry. The result is a sense of continuity in terms of both thematic currents and innovative patternings. That is the way in which Cree and

Anishnaabe approach and invigorate story-craft and amend approaches to story-craft, and thereby narrative medicine expresses a high degree of continuity over the years.

Taken all together, a picture of narrative medicine changing over time yet retaining a pattern emerges. Understanding how this works may help support and aid the invigoration of narrative medicine thereby supporting community wellbeing and overall health.

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1.3 Narrative Medicine in Depth

Ancestral understandings of medicine involve not only healing but also dreaming, divining, and intuiting – traditionally distinct ways of envisioning and realizing possibility. When medicine people use their skills to look for solutions to crises and for healing, their curative procedure often reaching beyond conventional ideological boundaries. These medicine journeys - jaunts into other abstracted orientations, alternate spheres of conception - enable the retrieval of diagnoses and cures. The same principle pervades the use of poetics in both modern and historical contexts. The reframing or reorientation of perspective and the ability to reorder preextant elements of thought into entirely new forms grounds the concept of narrative medicine. One

Anishnaabe conception of medicine comes from Wasaksing, Parry Island through the distorted yet informative lens of the ethnographer:

Not only men, but animals, trees, even water and rocks are tripartite, possessing bodies, souls, and shadows. They all have life like the life in human beings, even if they have been gifted with different powers and attributes. (Jenness 1935, 20)

Basil Johnston corroborates this understanding with a similar sentiment in Ojibway

Ceremonies (1982):

To understand the origin and nature of life, the Ojibway speaking peoples conducted inquiries within the soul-spirit that was the very depth of their being... In addition to insight they also gained a reverence for the mystery of life which animates all things: human-kind, animal-kind, plant-kind, and the very earth itself. (Johnston 1982, 7)

In this way a comprehensive understanding of the balanced attributes within all life leads to mamâhtâwisiwin- maamaandaawiziwin experience, the realization of the

16 equality and collective related character of all aspects of existence. Embedded in

Anishnaabemowin and nêhiyawêwin, similar mamâhtâwisiwin- maamaandaawiziwin envisioning expands and enhances perception and perspective. These experiences incorporate manifold approaches to ideas resulting in outcomes that often surprise the orators or writers themselves.16 That is the ultimate, critical potential of narrative medicine – it can at times transcend the restrictions of an individual author, orator, or community’s self-perceived existential limitations to find solutions to problems that otherwise would remain out of reach. Narrative practice in context, very literally and concretely becomes a kind of actualized medicine - in both traditional senses – it is able to bring about healing, while also looking past convention to greater understanding.

In accordance with Anishnaabe and Cree classical story cycles enumerated by

Basil Johnston among others,17 all people and all animals at one time could understand one another. Cree and Anishnaabe languages themselves have some words in common, and the grammar of each is very similar. In Saskatchewan today many Saulteaux Ojibwe communities are situated near Cree communities, and there are some Saulteaux-Cree communities. In this instance, definition of nationhood happens according to smooth fades and gradients and the lines between Cree and Anishnaabe identity and nationality sometimes blur in practice. With regards to ceremonial practices, though the Midewin

16 This parallels the Anishnaabe station of the goosabindigew, a medicine person whose job was to see difficult to discern patterns. This included medical diagnostics and envisioning possibilities. (Refer to Jenness 1935, 60)

17 Refer to Basil Johnston’s Tales the Elders Told (1981), Ojibway Ceremonies (1990), Ojibwe Heritage (1990), The Manitous (2001), and Honour Earth Mother (2004). The possibility that Johnston’s work reflects some Christian influence does not somehow disqualify him from legitimacy as an Anishnaabe scholar. How Anishnaabeg and Cree people rewrite Christianity is a topic of special interest and would make a good subject for a longer study. Many of the African American churches and those American churches involved in liberation theology have acted to counter oppression and colonialism respectively. This is also sometimes true of Indigenous churches though the effects of the churches (residential school for example) have often been devastating.

17 is exclusively Anishnaabe and the Sundance is of Cree origin, and many of the special societies such as ‘The Worthy Men’s Society’ are exclusively Cree, Shaking Tent and sweat lodge practices are shared by both Cree and Anishnaabe nations. Both Cree and

Anishnaabe nations acknowledge ancestrally and contemporarily the importance of the memengwesiwag, mêmêkwêsiwak or ‘Little People’. These similarities suggest a long history of idea exchange. Anishnaabe and Cree understandings of the regenerative power of animals are similar as well: both nations ancestrally maintain that animals reconstitute their bodies some time after they have been killed, provided their bones have not been chaotically disarticulated. Also each nation holds that animals approach and offer themselves to hunters out of special affinity for those individuals. That these principles exist across nations will become apparent in close readings of kâ-kîsikaw pîhtokêw Coming Day’s ‘Man and Bear’ (Plains Cree Texts 1934, 164-189) and

Gaagigebinesi’s ‘The Boy that Was Carried Away by a Bear’, (Ojibwa Texts 1919, 271-

278) and are corroborated by Robert Brightman and Jennifer Brown in The Orders of the

Dreamed: George Nelson on Cree and Northern Ojibwa Religion and Myth, 1823 (1988) and Robert Brightman in Grateful Prey: Rock Cree Human-Animal Relationships (1993).

In accordance with these perceptions, Cree and Anishnaabe criticism of how those of

European descent often view animals agrees with that stated by naturalist Henry Beston in The Outermost House (1928):

We patronize animals for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken a form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, we greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not

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underlings; they are other Nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time. (Beston 1928, 166)

What’s more, Anishnaabe and Cree nations commonly have formed alliances and have never been military opponents, while both nations were subject to the same pressures of colonialism: disease, sometimes employed by European militaries as a biological weapon18, widespread starvation due to the intentional diminution of the food supply such as bison, deer, and agricultural products, residential school, and, through Canada’s

Indian Act, the attempted banning of traditional thinking and its outward expression in addition to less formally consolidated but equally damaging legislation and policy enforcement on the U.S. side. The list of events outlining shared colonial histories between Cree and Anishnaabe nations is extensive. Given a prior history of respect,

Cree and Anishnaabe nations share a diverse yet cohesive foundation of narrative. Of this friendship let us recall:

In occupying a large territory the Anishinaube19 peoples had many neighbors living next door as it were. Most of their neighbors, Cree, Naskapi, Shawnee, Kickapoo, Menominee, Illiniwuk, spoke a similar language and shared a common outlook. They were kin who seldom quarreled... The Cree may have been closest in language and tradition to the Anishinaubae. They occupied land north of the Anishinaubae

18 Refer to the correspondence between British military officers Geoffrey Amherst and Colonel Bouquet. Their letters circa 1793 indicate a will to use smallpox infected materials to infect Anishnaabeg. Letters of General Jeffrey Amherst, to and from Colonel Henry Bouquet. D'Errico, Peter (2006) Jeffrey Amherst and Smallpox Blankets. Lord Jeffrey Amherst's letters discussing germ warfare against American Indians. http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/amherst/lord_jeff.html

19 Basil Johnston’s orthography () includes ‘h’ characters to indicate aspiration as does it often use ‘ee’ for the double vowel ‘ii’. It is an intuitive system and is preferred by some writers and speakers from earlier generations, and is appreciated by those who like to see a diversity in orthographic systems. Contemporarily the employment of syllabics in the north and the double vowel system is considered standard for purposes of teaching language for different reasons and historical patterns. In the south the double vowel system facilitates the production of text without changing a keyboard to accommodate syllabics or marks. Syllabics are considered to be a more intuitive and efficient system universally and so in the north where keyboard changes are less important (there is more handwriting and less typing) and where use of the language is sometimes greater, syllabics prevail.

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territory, extending as far east as did the Anishinaubae territory and much farther west, as far west as the Peace River in northern Alberta. (Johnston 2004, 9)

In accordance with this history, this work will celebrate the respect between these two nations while allowing for a transnational comparison of ideas. Looking at the similarities and differences that outline the narrative character of Cree and Anishnaabe nations will additionally help to illuminate what comprises literary nationalism in these contexts. Cree and Anishnaabe narrative has not appeared as of yet as common foci of a conversation of this scope and so the inclusion of both nations as a common focus represents something of a new endeavor.

Cree and Anishnaabe community based medicine combines prayer, harvesting and preparation of plants with an extensive diagnostic process wherein the practitioner speaks with the patient and with individuals who are close to the patient. By getting to know the patient and the context surrounding the ailment, the medicine person acquires a greater ability to address the illness at its source. The harvesting of plants is commonly done by young people for the medicine person, generally an elder, while the curative process often involves spoken elements and sometimes songs. Very old traditions of drawing out illness are still in use, constantly updated, and are considered by a vast majority to be effective. Practitioners of traditional medicine at Anishnaabe

Health in Toronto the Enaahtig Healing Lodge near Victoria Harbour are among the many that use drawing medicine. Many of the medicines used need to work in combination with one another in order to be potent. When looking for theoretical depth, all of these observations surrounding traditional medicine become relevant as

20 metaphor. Recombinative medicine, medicines restoring balance and medicines providing general good health and wellbeing all suggest counterparts in narrative medicine and the way themes and concepts actualize wellbeing. In this way, literary theory may arise internally, from Cree and Anishnaabe thought directly. Cree and

Anishnaabe friendly educational formats likely lead to greater student retention and enthusiasm when formulating community based educational models. Winona Wheeler cites Solomon Ratt in explaining Cree approaches to education:

In Cree terms education is understood as a lifelong process that emphasizes the whole person. It strives for spiritual, mental, and physical balance, and emotional well-being within the context of family and community... Cree education is relational. Salomon Ratt explains that in Cree terms, education does not come in compartmentalized institutional stages. Cree education kiskinohamatowin, refers to a reciprocal and interactive teaching relationship between a student and a tecaher, a "community activity." Thus seeking Cree knowledge requires an entirely different kind of relationship based on long-term commitment, reciprocity and respect. (Ratt 1992 in Wheeler in McNab, David, and Ute Lischke 1995, 198.)

Any educational system that acknowledges the unique strengths and autonomy of students and teachers as individuals will lead to greater learning all around, as a person’s curiosity when provided educational tools and the room to express itself is a catalyst for learning. Taken one step further empowering students to develop their own theoretical and educational models would likely lead to further educational invigoration.

If the language itself is understood as a remembrance and concept infused idea- fabric, care may be demonstrated for it by reinvigorating its utility and its poetry.

Though ancestral narratives can be understood somewhat without an understanding of the original language, key themes and ideas disappear in the journey across the

21 sometimes great expanses of translation. Most severely, the texture and style of the original narrative will tend to suffer distortion unless the translator is especially adept in conveying those particularly nuanced aspects of the language. To some the original languages nêhiyawêwin and Anishnaabemowin influence consciousness to varying degrees, while to others they are agentic. In either case these languages carry a great deal of conceptual information and frame experience for their speakers in ways that are not possible in English. Ultimately the languages themselves reinforce reciprocity, kinship and expansive relationality all pervaded by ultimate irreducibility of thought- form. In his short film-play Three Spirited (2012) Playwright and Cree speaker Tomson

Highway relates:

In the language of my birth Cree, the Great Spirit, men women children dogs horses trees rocks all enjoy the same status. Everything together forms one great unity. And so it follows that if this is true, each and every one of us would have an instinctive desire to be a part of that same essential spark which we call life. We all want to feel at one with that one central energy, that great bolt of magic. (Highway 2012, 1:52)

In other words layered information and mystery inundates the language and so it should comes as no surprise that rich layered meanings and approaches to knowledge permeates narratives told in these languages. That is not to say that one results in the other, only that by sharing common origin in the hearts and minds of the people each, the language and the narrative architecture reflect similarities.

In this conversation, the definition for narrative is very broad. Ancestral narrative genres include traditional stories, sometimes called sacred stories or legends -

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âtayôhkêwina20 - adizookewin21, life histories or the telling of events; âcimowina – dibaajimowin, and counseling speeches referred to as kâkêskêmowina - waawiindamawin22. In terms of ancestral narrative we will look at the Anishnaabe Texts collected by William Jones, and at the Cree texts collected by Leonard Bloomfield.

These we will look at critically with attention to their value as literature and with attention to any transcription biases and contextual elements. In terms of contemporary narrative this conversation will begin by looking at the creative work of

Cree author Louise Bernice Halfe and Anishnaabe author Marie Annharte Baker, understanding these as extensions of or sometimes manifestations of âtayôhkêwina and aadizookewin, sacred stories.

Narrative practice enhances community well being by increasing room for autonomous construction of identity, enabling self determination in all aspects of life while increasing room for the maintenance and reformulation of ancestral perspectives.

These concepts and themes will appear herein with attention given to how creative

20 Oftentimes a circumflex ‘ˆ’ in Cree orthographies will mark a long vowel. In this work where you see a circumflex you will know you are looking at a word in one of the dialects of Cree. Where you see two together this is known as the ‘double vowel system’ and you will know you are looking at a word in one of the dialects of Anishnaabe language.

21 Aadizookaan in Nishnaabemwin is an animate . Though not conclusive in and of itself, that the noun is animate resonates well with some Anishnaabe and Cree traditional teachings regarding the agency of aadizookaan, that is the idea that some stories speak about have a soul or essence independent of the teller, a living spiritual being. Aadizookewin refers to a sacred story or legend practice which often follow aadizookaanag beings and their experiences. All of the stories of The Ojibwa Texts may be understood as aadizookewin. Cree/Metís author Gregory Scofield in an in-class interview corroborated this idea through his reference to the concept of story or narrative ‘stewardship’. (Scofield 2009 in Trent University Indigenous Literature 2480 taught by Professor Neal McLeod)

22 Cree language scholar Freda Ahenakew, was one of the first individuals to formally recognize these genres of Cree narrative in her editorial work for the Algonquian Text Society. It was not her intent however to formalize these categories but to simply point out that there are a great many different genres and sub-genres within the practices of Cree narrative. Nêhiyawêwin technically refers to Plains Cree language. Herein we will use the term to refer generically to Cree language. Nishnaabemwin refers to Eastern dialects of Ojibwe language, Anishnaabemowin refers to Minnesota dialects of Anishnaabe language

23 approach catalyzes, intensifies, facilitates, or transforms poetic perspective; that is how narrative imagination invigorates narrative medicine. Contemporary Cree and

Anishnaabe authors help steward narratives, caring for them as one might care for land or family. In caring for these stories, the stories pay back by reinvigorating people’s lives. Louise Halfe’s poems work towards social change as prayer in her poetry strengthens the fabric of relationality. Reading one of Tomson Highway’s plays or one of Gerald Vizenor’s short stories, the laughter, although it may well be owed to the Elder brother in its origin, helps sustain personal vitality throughout the day – it is not like, it is, medicine.

1.4 Approach and Emergent Inductive Method

The approach applied in this conversation involves the assertion that the intellectual theory for looking at Cree and Anishnaabe history, literature and other relevant materials may be arrived at internally by respecting the ideas resident in

Anishnaabe and Cree language and narrative artistry. Looking at literature from the point of view of the language is a technique of what could be called literary theory or literary criticism used by Natasha Beeds in her master’s thesis: A Cartography of nêhiyawi-mâmitonêyihcikan (Cree Consciousness / Thinking): Edward Ahenakew & The

Âtayôhkêwina (Sacred Stories) (2010). This method has been around in various forms for some time but only recently has it begun to flourish to where the presence and importance of Indigenous language is central to work in Indigenous studies. In the future it may be possible to find entire degrees written bilingually and then eventually in

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Indigenous languages in entirety. For now a great deal of explanation of Indigenous concepts in English seems appropriate as even survival school attendees at least in the more southerly latitudes are not yet to the point in fluency where English can be laid aside entirely.

The narration approaches used in Plains Cree Texts, echo the intent of what

Hugh Brody explains in Maps and Dreams… (1981):

The hunter, alive to constant movement of nature, spirits, and human moods, maintains a way of doing things that repudiates a firm plan and any precise or specified understanding with others of what he is going to do. His course of action is not, must not be, a matter of predetermination. If a plan constitutes a decision about the right procedure or action, and the decision is congruent with the action, then there is no space left for a "plan," only for a bundle of open-ended and non-rational possibilities. Activity enters so far into this kind of planning as to undermine any so-called plans. (Brody 1981, 34)

Brody’s explanation of Athapascan hunters’ dynamism, flexibility and adaptive action- evaluation unity describes the same conceptual space that this project’s original approach embraces. This method preferences Anishnaabemowin, Anishnaabe language and nêhiyawêwin, Cree Language, alongside the concepts woven into the fabric of the languages and the way these are carried.23 This method is inductive as it was not apparent at the outset of this conversation how a language-based narrative medicine framed indigenist literary approach would look like. It became clear after some time

23 If there are missteps made in the use of this method, such is to be expected as the integrity of the language is still returning as the older generations and younger generations begin to speak to one another in and about the language and the old ways more and more. Any mistakes then serve as welcome junctures where additional conversations about concepts that may have been misinterpreted or misrepresented may begin.

25 working with the texts that an indigenist language-based approach to Cree and

Anishnaabe literature would be guided by concepts within the language. These concepts come into greater resolution when employing a word-by-word translation comparison stratagem coupled with an appreciation for the continuance of ancestral improvisational themes. This was not planned but came from the general belief that experience with the language and close readings of the texts might self-guide an emergent method inductively. In simpler terms, the approach to the texts that came together here did so organically and intuitively and was not pre-planned.

Anishnaabe and Cree language and ideology, though complex, embraces a kind of beauty-through-simplicity which can only begin to be understood through arduous translation. These internal symmetries and multi-axial patterns of ideas often do not survive the translation process. Many Anishnaabemowin and nêhiyawêwin concepts, often can find only vague approximations in English as their nuance and subtlety is too great to retain integrity across the language divide. One way to address this problem is through a comparison of multiple layered translations. Another is through a careful study of each nêhiyawêwin or Anishnaabemowin word used in a translation and its surrounding associated meaning complex in Cree or Anishnaabe language. Another yet has to do with taking the time to clarify the associated meaning complexes of English words used in translations of Cree or Anishnaabe words and concepts.24 Finally there

24 The associated meaning complex of a word is its meaning, often derived from multiple contextual uses. The associated meanings of a word may sometimes diverge from the literal dictionary definitions for that word. A compounded accrual of misunderstanding inevitably occurs in contexts where clarification of each individual step does not occur for whatever reason. The ‘language barrier’ as it is often referred to is oftentimes a conceptual barrier that has to do with fundamental differences in experience and perspective. These experiences shape the language and then the language in turn shapes perspective to some degree, a kind of self-maintaining pattern that can sustain

26 remains poetics whose unique utility in expressing nêhiyawêwin and Anishnaabemowin concepts in English accurately may constitute a central factor in making poetry as a medium popular among the newest generations of Anishnaabe and Cree writers. All of these approaches to language and translation will occur in the first two chapters of this inquiry. Aside from all of this, there remains the concern that Anishnaabemowin must be protected from Anglicization with regards to syntax. Henry Flocken from White

Earth, the then director of cultural programming for the Leech Lake Bug-o-nay-geshig

School said:

One speaker I know from Canada said when he talks to older elders here, he understands them quite well. They speak the old language. The younger speakers give him the most challenge. They are feeling the effects of acculturation in mentality and language sound and syntax patterns. For example, some non-fluent teachers are telling youth to pronounce the number eleven as "aashi bezhig," where it should be "ashi bezhig." Also "namadaBlN" is often incorrectly pronounced "NAMadabin." English sound patterns and sentence structure are changing Ojibwe. This is an historical event in the evolution of gidanishinaabemowininaan, fate, gemaa gaye destiny, maagizhaa something that can and should be avoided. (Henry Flocken in Anton Treuer (Etd.) Oshkabewis Native Journal 3:1 (Spring 1996): 12)

Maintaining the integrity of the language has to do with more than teaching students simply to replace English word-for-word with Anishnaabemowin. Rather, renewing

Anishnaabemowin means revitalizing original pronunciation, syntax, and ideology with special care paid to how first speakers arrange ideas, how they interact, and how they stress sounds in terms of both basic pronunciation, accent and patterns used intentionally to convey meaning or emotion. Similarly developing a literary approach

and encode changes at a limited rate. The limitations to conceptual change that a language can impart a people can protect that speaker-ship from outside influence and manipulation, as can it help those speakers retain some of the ideas considered most valued by their predecessors.

27 informed by Anishnaabemowin poetics begs a commitment to the language that goes beyond dictionary translations to more comprehensive understandings of concepts and the ways in which Anishnaabemowin is spoken.

Ultimately, an inductive approach to formulating a literary theory regarding old and renewed ancestral narrative has to do with trusting that a pre-extant theory already exists in the minds of writers and orators, regarding their own work. Anishnaabe scholar Niiganwewidam James Sinclair in Troubling Tricksters (2010) corroborates this idea:

Now, I utilize trickster stories in my critical and creative pursuits as an Anishinaabeg scholar, teacher and writer. I use them to demonstrate that Anishinaabeg literary theories in fields such as signification, semiotics and the novel… are available, complex, and rich on their own terms. (Sinclair in Reder, Morra 2010, 22)

Regarding narrative medicine or generating uniquely encouraging words and thoughts to the degree that one’s audience, one’s people may gain strength and health as a result represents the foundational literary theory behind this work. Because this has as much to do with subtlety as it does with nuance, the smaller-seeming ideas that come as a result of narrative practice all have cumulative bearing on the well being of an individual.

1.5 Positionality

As well as I can evaluate, I originally became interested in Indigenous Studies out of a combination of land-awareness and a desire to see what had begun during the Civil

Rights Movement continue, though I haven’t been able to articulate this until recently.

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It was as though all of the progress that was made during the Civil Rights Era towards equality and respect among people was in danger of being lost amidst the frivolity and excesses of the 1980s and 1990s. In terms of land-awareness, Madison, Wisconsin where I was born is peopled by hundreds of animal and animal-spirit shaped earthen mounds, something that held my attention throughout my youth. That half of these held intact burials of the descendants of Anishnaabeg and Siouian language speaking people brought to the land a sense of presence unique to the area. Madison, Wisconsin in Hochungra and Anishnaabe joint traditional territory had much to do with Vietnam

War era protests. Madison has come to be known as a place where political progressives discuss issues and initiate community projects. The public schools in

Madison as well as the listener-sponsored community radio along with many of the youth movements that occurred during the last few decades are among the strongest influences I have had.

My extended family is originally from present day Maine, my father’s family being from northern Maine, traditional and Mik’maw territory. His extended family on his mother’s side, those with the surname Archer, are still very much connected to the backwoods. One of the greatest gifts my family gave me was a familiarity with walking long distances beneath the trees. Up until a very short time ago, all of my family had been for generations living more or less in the woods and towns of

Aroostik County, across the border near Castle Hill in New Brunswick, and along the

Southeastern coast of Maine. The people of Northern Maine it would seem, both of

Indigenous and European-descent, have a great deal in common when considering the

29 relationship to the land that they have and the social mannerisms they sometimes share. There are still hatreds and petty dislikes perpetuated across race lines, some left over even possibly from King Phillip’s War, but there exists also a subset of individuals on the both sides that hold in high regard and have for many generations sought friendship with their neighbors. I may represent an extension of this generational move towards friendship or common emphasis on kindness as a foundation for greater philosophy. Governments may intercede, economics may provide obstacles to this, and yet people on both sides of race lines, some of them anyway, stubbornly insist on looking towards respect and friendship.

My mother’s father is first generation American born from Scottish parents who immigrated from the Killintockit area in Scotland to southern Maine when he was young. According to my mother, Pammy Johnson, my mother’s grandmother, my great- great grandmother, identified to some uncertain degree as Penobscot, or Eastern

Abenaki, and Grandpa Johnson my mother’s grandfather, my great-great grandfather identified to some uncertain degree as Piscataquis, Western Abenaki, though she also said that neither maintained ties to the Penobscot or Piscataquis communities. This she told me some years after my Uncle had learned that I was interested in Indigenous

Studies (then American Indian Studies) and related something of our Abenaki ancestry. I am careful not to exaggerate this ancestry, but I am also careful on the other hand not to disregard it. My identity is mixed, variable, even contextual, and changes over time can affect the extent to how much apart of things I feel. I lived at Wshkiigimong, Curve

Lake for several years and now at Chimnissing, Beausoleil First Nation. Living in these

30 communities has strengthened the sense that as a friend to Anishnaabe and sister nations with disparate Abenaki roots, I have been welcomed time and again and shown that I have a place in the circle.

I have had to learn how to listen and speak in a way that was fairly unfamiliar but intuitively more natural to my character than some of the ways I had become accustomed to speaking in the more European-descent places I have lived. I have learned to speak more clearly and accurately, with an emphasis on humour and efficiency of language, with considerably greater attention paid to how conversations feel than seems typical in European-descent places I have lived. This takes a great deal of discipline and care, and yet over time it has become comfortable. Now when I watch how European descent peoples tend to interact I notice the differences. Many of the elders seem to maintain Anishnaabe-ness and Cree-ness by practicing it, part of which must have to do with this awareness of how others feel. The elders for the most part are knowledgeable and attentive, soft-spoken yet raucous, deliberate yet spontaneous.

Above all they have a keen sense of wit and they are very, very funny, often shockingly so. All of this combines as a special signature of attention or respect of others and for the emotional state of a group of people; this I consider to be a very important aspect of Anishnaabe and Cree thought, and we may do well to teach it alongside or better yet intertwined with the language.

Before coming to Ontario I studied traditional medicine with Anishnaabe scholar

Patty Lowe and Kikapu midwife Patricia Gonzales in the school of Agricultural Journalism for several years in Madison. At the same time I studied Anishnaabemowin with Rand

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Valentine and then student Omar Poler. Before that I completed a master’s degree at the University of Minnesota – Duluth working with professor of

Religious Studies Ken Mello on traditional story texts of the Wabanaki Confederacy of

Maine and the Maritimes and the problems of transcription. My father, mother, sister, and grandfather all work(ed) in medicine, and so it is natural that I am interested in medicine also. At Trent I have returned to traditional stories and informed by previous interests, this has led naturally to the revelation that they do, especially through their contemporary renewal in poetry and other writing work as medicine.

The balanced focus of this work between Cree and Anishnaabe nations I pursued out of respect for my advisor, for the Cree nation independently, and out of a personal desire to continue to reinforce the strong friendships between all of the sister nations and their allies. True friendship happens for no reason; it is unconditional and is a reward in itself. That is possibly the strongest reason for pursuing this project - it is the friendships I have experienced in Anishnaabewaki and nêhiyawaskiy that this work celebrates.

A passage of Treaty Three was recently brought up by Shawn Atleo.25 The intent of the Treaty, exemplifying treaty process on the whole Atleo explained: “We will raise your children and teach them and we in turn will do the same, so that we can better understand one another.” This has not happened to the extent indicated by treaty. In a way my own participation in Indigenous Studies has occurred with a similar sharing and willful intent to uphold a commitment to understanding in mind.

25 From Redmanlaughing.com published by Ryan McMahon, February 6, 2012, Episode 11.

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It has become more and more clear as the years go by that the importance of the language and understanding comprehensively what is being said within the language is of import. We are just learning now that approaches to learning and teaching Indigenous languages could be improved by looking at what each sound or root word means as opposed to trying to always memorize long word-sentences or words as though they were the equivalents of English words. In this conversation I have to the best of my ability translated words for what they meant to the speaker as opposed to how they have been formally translated in English. I still have a long way to go in my understanding of Anishnaabemowin and Cree, but of all that appears in this volume, the greatest attention has been given to the Anishnaabemowin- English and nêhiyawêwin-

English translations of the Ojibwa Texts and the Plains Cree Texts.

For now I am content to know that the old way of understanding and creating stories, Cree and Anishnaabe alike, continues to live in the present, and continues to help people as it has always done. I hope that others will benefit from this work and that it will in some way help to strengthen future generations of Anishnaabeg, Cree, sister nations and their allies, of which I am and will always be one. I think of this work as repatriation, not of objects but of stories and approaches to creating stories and poetry, complete with their resident ideas, images and concepts. The Ojibwa Texts and

The Plains Cree Texts among many others belong with the people. In order for those texts to live they must be continually reinvented and renewed in new media by those most capable of showing those narratives respect and actualizing them as medicine.

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I have also become interested in how to create curricula and pedagogy surrounding these texts which emphasizes indigenized thought. I do not see newer poetry as entirely separate from these older stories, and for that reason the two may appropriately be thought about as extensions of the same narrative practice. The classics were modern when they were created, and newer writing will one day be considered classical. In a Cree and Anishnaabe way of looking at time, the classics do not progress in a linear way towards the evolution of better and better stories, instead the one is an expression of the other circularly. Renewing narrative practices happens each generation and is necessary to maintaining the continuing circle of renewal that defines a nation.

Ancestral thinking informs contemporary narrative artistry and the circle nears completion as newer poets reinvent, reinvigorate and revitalize the older forms just as earlier narrative artists renewed the thought-forms that preceded them. The gift successive generations of narrative artists give to the generations following, insofar as storied method is concerned, has as much to do with individual stories as does it have to do with inheriting a means of innovation, and most importantly attaining intellectual independence through envisioning possibility. The reorientation of perspective that those involved in narrative medicine create provides a means for understanding a changing world where Anishnaabe and Cree continue to have a fundamental and critical place. The stories and poetry that follow all agree upon one subliminal assertion – without Cree and Anishnaabe people and their brothers and sisters in related nations, the living earth would have little protection against the tides of empire. As keepers of

34 stories that heal, empower and envision, Cree and Anishnaabe narrative artists whether ancestral or of the current generations cultivate the autonomy of spirit that allows for the stewardship, healing and empowerment not only of Cree and Anishnaabe communities but of the living earth herself.

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2 Kinship, the Living Earth, and Laughter: the Many Shades of Anishnaabe Poetics in Ojibwa Texts

2.1 The Poetics of Aadizookewin, Anishnaabe Ancestral Stories

This chapter concerns Ojibwa Texts (1917, 1919) transcribed by Meskwaki (Fox

Nation), English and Welsh descent anthropologist Megasiáwa26, William Jones. These are Lake Superior and Northern Minnesota Anishnaabe stories reshaped and retold by each generation for millennia, until at the turn of the century William Jones transcribed them on the shores of Chi-gaming, 'The Far Crossing' - Lake Superior.

The stories were narrated during the residential school era while William Jones was employed by the Carnegie Institute from 1903-1905 as a research assistant and so very likely represent an effort on the part of the narrators to use the institution of anthropology to help remember and save them for future generations. Volume I of The

Ojibwe Texts, printed in 1917 is edited by William Jones and has for a project manager

Franz Boas. Volume II was printed in 1919, though bibliographic information depending on the library, journal, or online source often gives the two volumes under one 1917 citation. The second volume was printed in New York after publication was determined unfeasible through E.J. Brill in Holland due to the chaos surrounding WWI. In that time

William Jones had passed on and so Truman Michelson edits Jones’ introduction while making some technical edits to the body text. Michelson adds this third layer of

26 Megasiáwa was William Jones’ given Meskwaki name. He used it rarely in his public life, and even more seldom in academic contexts. This paper will follow example by using primarily his English name.

36 influence, while Franz Boas remains a fairly hands-off project coordinator.

The old stories live in the present, though they have continually metamorphosed, recurrently interwoven now into new narrative forms. The aesthetics, themes, metaphors and intent of these stories reflect a characteristically Anishnaabe willingness to celebrate life, a quality that makes the people both stronger and healthier

- more willing to see the world in terms of its beauty, vitality, interconnectedness, and intrinsic humour. All told, though these stories were gathered while taking into account little of the lives of the storytellers, they reveal these key elements of Anishnaabe character.

The Ojibwa Texts hint at or suggest a special kind of joy, a combination of bold and clever erotic humour; they involve elaborate plot arrangements that sometimes inspire multiplicitous interpretations, and they invoke a luminous presence of land - something the storm of the last several centuries failed to destroy. This is the definition of Anishnaabe ancestral poetics as suggested by Ojibwa Texts - it is characterized by an attention to relation or kinship, a penchant for uniquely abstract thinking, and a profoundly rich and boundless humor. All of this emerges from a close reading of the texts within the language and will hopefully inspire the reader to formulate approaches of his or her own to Anishnaabe texts. This is significant as the final truth regarding a text remains ultimately impressionistic and subjective - the sum total experience of all individuals who independently interact with the text determines its meaning.

The poetry of the texts is primarily the result of the perception of the universe they describe. The land is alive; the people are part of the land; everything is an aspect

37 of one great soul. The animals are kin as are the stars, and lightheartedness is as much a part of survival as is the ability to understand how to best support one’s relations. The poetry of the old stories exists untouchable by any absolutist attempt to deconstruct, restrict, or decisively define it. That poetics of the Ojibwa Texts do not conform easily to the demands of direct interrogation, as the only possible result of fundamentalist inquiry into the nature of peoples' souls and the spirit of the land is a reflection of the absurdity and imbalance of the original question. So in this conversation there is no attempt to rigidly define poetics, but rather to state that different authors and different orators may do well to continue to come up with their own definitions of poetics that reflect what they see. Defining poetics then becomes a participatory meeting place where a multiplicity of voices may convene to share related ideas.

There exists a strong correlation between community well being and ancestral thinking. If the ancestors experience regeneration as the people now, then older vision- inspired stories have become modern stories, and circularly, the immortal dreams of the ancestors have become modern stories. The stories continue to live through creative retellings - the recombination of pre-existing elements and innovation - all of which occur in accordance with ever-changing, ever-growing ancestral aesthetics. The stories themselves may continue to live not always through attempts to retell them as they were, but through efforts to give them new shape and new life, in new dreams, new literatures, and in new ways of being.

The land itself, if it may be understood as informing aadizookewin, does so in a similar way with regards to the Ojibwa Texts authors and Annharte. The watershed of

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Lake Nipigon, the Lake Superior North Shore, the contributing rivers that

Marie Syrette mentions as a place where many of the stories may have originated and the Bois Forte area all overlap. This becomes apparent when we perceive weather systems as critical in our estimation of watershed. The rivers, waterways and storm systems provide both a physical means for stories to travel, as well as more abstruse means. A more literal understanding of aadizookewin, or story-craft, that relating to the study of aadizookaan, or the spirit beings of the stories, might suggest that the aadizookanan travel along waterways through cities and backwoods alike. This reinforces the already widely recognized importance of water in Anishnaabewaki as the source of all life, with an additional understanding of water as the medium upon which stories traveled ancestrally.

Looking at the old stories hopefully will give a better sense of what the ancestors were like, and how they continue to live in people and stories of the present. As it would turn out, if these narratives may be taken as evidence, the ancestors liked to dream-out-loud as it were, to envision possibility, and they liked to laugh, or at least smile until their faces hurt. Oftentimes it would seem, they liked to do these things in the space of a single story, and sometimes, in the space of a single breath.

2.2 The Poetics of Anishnaabemowin

In ‘Nisidotawiminaagozi Anishinaabe,’ (2003) cited by Anton Treuer in ‘Ge-onji- aabadak Anishinaabe-inweweinan’ - ‘In Order for Our speaking Anishnaabemowin to be

Useful’ (2006), Doris White Crow has the following to say regarding the importance of

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Anishnaabemowin:

Akawe niwii-kanoodaan wenji-apiitendak gidinwewininaan. First of all I want to speak of in regards to the value placed on all of us speaking with one another.

Mii akeyaa nisidotawiminaagozid anishinaabe Then in such a direction that we might understand one another anishinaabe

Giishpin wanitooyang gemaa gaye aabajitoosiwang, If we lose it or else/maybe and we do not use it, manidoog gaawiin oga-nisidotawasiiwaawaan anishinaaben. the spirits no you all (4th) will not understand them (3rd) anishnaabe people (4th).

(Doris White Crow (2003, 38) in Treuer (2006, 87))

Author’s translation: First of all I want to speak of the value placed on us all speaking with one another. Then in such a direction that we might understand one another Anishnaabeg. If we lose it or if we otherwise do not use it, we will not be able to understand the spirits.

Suddenly, the importance of the language transcends the common expectations of literature. In this case the manidoog speak Anishnaabemowin rendering it requisite for one to also be able to speak or understand Anishnaabemowin in order to understand the spirits. In 2006 at the Petroglyphs near Naagaajiwanong and Curve Lake, Manitoulin elder Edna Manitowabi remarked that the water that used to run through the rocks upon which the petroglyphs are written spoke the stories of those images in

Anishnaabemowin. As the metal and concrete enclosure that houses the rocks cuts off the ability of the water to flow freely, the rocks no longer speak in the same way. Both

Doris White Crow and Edna Manitowabi agree that Anishnaabemowin is spoken by the agentic awareness of the land and ancestors, making learning the language and language related poetics important to ancestral and land-oriented understanding.

Poetics and translation depend on one another to a certain extent. This work closely concerns what many understand as 'literature in translation'. It emphasizes

40 understanding the way stories appear in the original language. The grounding premise behind this approach has to do with the idea that a language is a living thing, a long time friend and relation, that helps the people see a more expansive truth through the experience of different layers of multiple truths presented all at once. This itself is a poetic understanding of Anishnaabemowin, resonant with the internal poetics of the language – those that assert universal animacy. Thunder for example may only be referred to in Anishnaabemowin by invoking Animkiig or the Thunderbirds. The vitality and life in the universe, its awareness and agency become synonymous with a poetic understanding of the land. How translations occur, and how Anishnaabemowin is rendered in English, reveals the nature of and extent to which a given translator might understand this nuance. In short, relational land awareness approximates Indigenous poetics. Tewa scholar Gregory Cajete said:

Native people perceived multiple realities, of which the reality experienced by our five senses was only one of many possibilities. In such a perceived multiverse, knowledge could be received directly from living and non-living entities ... In short Native cultures understood and reflected in profound and elegant ways that "we are all related". (Cajete 2000, 178)

The ability to read many layers of truth in a circumstance additionally is remembered in, through and by the language. Emphasis on the original language versions of stories accompanied by close readings and focus on the meanings of individual words, and the appreciation for the social aesthetics of the audience, provide some sense for the way in which the stories may cause the listener-ship to know multiple experiential orientations.

Regarding close translation, In many cases words may require more than unquestioned simple word-replacement translation. For instance, in the Ojibwe Texts, 'jiibay' is

41 translated as 'ghost'. Contemporary translations would render 'jiibay' instead as

'ancestor'. Anton Treuer sees the language as carrying knowledge that can guide

Anishnaabeg in life:

Giishpin anishinaabeg waa-anokiiwaad ji-bimaadiziiwinagak If anishnaabeg wish to work in order that they might live anishinaabemowin, gidaa-izhichigemin anishinaabemong. according to the anishnaabe language, we should do it (we should)speak ansihnaabemowin

Gaawiin onzaam zanagasinoon. No too much is it not difficult

(Treuer 2006, 87)

Author’s translation: If Anishnaabe people wish to work in order that they might live in accordance with the teachings endemic to Anishnaabe language, We should speak Anishnaabe language. It is not too difficult.

As well as guidance, the language and how it is spoken carries information regarding the poetic perception of social spaces. That is, there is a certain politeness and consideration practiced in Anishnaabemowin that respects individuals' personal space and affairs that sometimes leads translators, such as William Jones to render words such as 'giin' as 'thou' as opposed to you, and 'giiwenh' as 'sufficiently' as opposed to

'enough'. In any translation approximation of the original intended meanings occurs, yet misunderstanding through translation In Indigenous languages is a high risk endeavor. This is because the perspectives enabled by Anishnaabemowin and English differ greatly. Vigilance and attention to the assumed nested meanings of English words serves as the remedy for misleading translations that would at first appear correct.

Close readings of Anishnaabemowin texts with an attention to single-word meanings may be considered a kind of decolonizing linguistics, a way of sifting through assumptions, presuppositions and implications bound to English, in order to better

42 understand the original intent of a text.

To illustrate some of the challenges of translations consider Caroline Helen Roy

Fuhst in nisoosataagaadeg akina initaagawaziwinan e-noonindaadgaadegin e-akidoong akidoowining - Introduction to the sound based method of understanding

Anishnaabemowin: Understanding all the sounds that are heard (2012). In this work, she suggests that ‘nibi’, water, can be broken down into two syllables, and according to her teaching method each syllable has a consonantal sound that carries meaning related to the following vowel sound that also carries meaning. As a result ‘nibi’ known to speakers by convention to mean ‘water’ has a second layer of meaning that can be discerned by looking at each sound in each syllable. The result is this: ‘n - entity in action’; ‘i - it is visible’ for the first syllable. This could be rendered to mean that the entity or being of water is visible, recommending to the mind the substance of the water, its clarity its feel, its reflectivity and motion. Now the second syllable: ‘b - at this place’; ‘i - it is visible.’ (284) This emphasis on place and visibility in the second syllable recommends to the speaker that he or she visualize the surrounding landform, the context the water takes, the prime rule being that the action is understood as taking place at the current time in the mind of the speaker or listener. (31) That is regardless of whether what is spoken of happened previously or is memory, the act of remembering or thinking brings it to life in a way that would suggest it is at least in a shadow-like fashion happening in the present. This would include the stream bottom and the way the stones look underneath. It would include any overhanging logs with accompanying hanging mosses or lichens. In other words the individual sounds carry

43 information that may be perceived by a first speaker that those learning

Anishnaabemowin that has been overly influenced by English or that has been understood too much in terms of English translation might miss.

At the Anishnaabemowin Teg gathering at Bawiting, Sault St. Marie thirty year the same veteran language teacher and first speaker Caroline Helen Roy Fuhst gave a talk titled ‘Returning the Language Back to the Anishnaabemowin Spoken at the Time of

Tecumseh.’ (March 28th 2013). Here the importance of returning the language back to the time before English had overly influenced Anishnaabemowin pedagogy and understanding, has to do with the idea that each vowel and consonantal sound has a consistent meaning in a syllabic relationship in each word.

Looking at the Ojibwa Texts as literature in translation appears herein complimented with the idea of looking at the texts in terms of Anishnaabe ideology as opposed to through another lens of modern literary criticism.27 This method comes from an appreciation for Anishnaabe sensibilities with regards to abstraction and humour that comes from these and other Anishnaabemowin texts. This is a kind of conceptual double-shift, deriving the aesthetic sensibility for looking at a text from the text itself grounded by ideas from the language and from other Anishnaabemowin texts.

27 The literary criticism mode appearing here favors an explicit balance between praise and hard criticism, an emulation of Cree and Anishnaabe balanced approach to thought. This may to the reader seem to have a more encouraging and positive feel than does literary criticism familiar to much English literature at times. In Anishnaabe and Cree general public sentiment it is rarely if ever considered vogue, chic or fashionable to put others down, even if such is meant to be constructive. Such criticism if necessary often occurs with some measure of tact or diplomacy, at least insofar as to relegate it to the gossip mill. Emulating this as a mode of pedagogy, or teaching and learning approach, balance in critique affects higher morale in the student body, as does it help to break down the student- instructor hierarchy – a major impediment to those wishing to harness formal education so as to empower the student and instructor alike. In short a pedagogy of encouragement to the student is Indigenous as is it empowering. According to this, a student made to know their own importance, power, potential, early on will be better positioned to embrace community responsibility.

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The themes, abstractions, metaphorical preferences, and aesthetics communicated in the stories continue to inform Anishnaabe perspective contemporarily. These taken together constitute poetics in the conventional sense.

Poetics in the Anishnaabe sense is something closer to what Gregory Cajete described, that is, being able to re-orient perspective through narrative influence. To perceive the world in entirely unique ways in something like the way different animals are able to hear frequencies of sound others cannot. One story may highlight a distinct kind of kinship or relation that does not appear in other literatures; another story may emphasize a unique kind of humour or abstraction.

This is the missing element when looking at texts, that without being present in the room at the time the reader does not feel the emotion projected by the teller.

Discerning the emotional content that would have accompanied a story is the key challenge in this kind of work and is an essential part of poetics. Also looking at the stories in translation is a fun way to learn the language while acquiring an appreciation for the old ways.

The stories as they appear in Anishnaabemowin have their own distinct rhythm and idea-order. These combine with the ever-changing associated meaning matrices surrounding a particular word, to create a kind of internal poetry. This internal poetic quality is congruent with a potential to enhance perception and cognition, in a way particular to that language. Each language has characteristic strengths in this regard.

Translations more distant from the original language will be more readable, but will tend to sacrifice a higher degree of meaning than closer translations. Jones has the

45 following to say regarding this dilemma:

It was the plan to have the translation run as near as possible with the order of the ideas of the text; but this could not be maintained except within approximate limits. But with few exceptions, it was possible to keep the grammar of the translation close to that of the text. Where there was departure from the grammatical structure of the original, it was in cases where the sense would have been left in doubt if fidelity to syntax was adhered to. (Jones 1917, xiv)

Jones, as the primary transcriber,28 developed a unique talent for representing the texts in English using features of the original language. He also tried to explain his own perspective, his own method as it were in understanding the texts. Jones’ field notes quoted by Truman Michelson, the projects' Volume II primary editor states: “The work is to be taken largely as an attempt to get at the religious ideas of a people from their own point of view. As this point of view can be expressed only in terms of their own language, naturally the linguistic approach had to be employed in the investigation.” (xi)

Furthermore Jones states: “The form of the story in the text is that which the speaker told but once, at the first dictation.” (xi) It is interesting to note that these ideas, whether they come from Boas, Jones, or the general influence of ethnology at the time, resonate well with current directions in Indigenous Studies though they originate over a century past.

William Jones talks about how the original author-orators of the Ojibwe Texts favored an economy of language relying heavily on the audiences’ ability to hold in their memory detailed context, and to expect subtlety, suggestion and inference to elements

28 Each orator helped translate, whereas those mentioned as additional contributors also helped translate; in other words the faithfulness and accuracy of the translations was a collective effort of all parties involved, that no one individual could accurately claim.

46 of that greater cumulatively established context as a result:

Vagueness of reference is common. The unconscious assumption on the part of the narrator that one is familiar with the background of a narrative, is one cause why so many of the statements, when taken as they stand, are unintelligible. This vagueness of effect is helped along by the tendency to abbreviated expression – such as the frequent mention of an occurrence without mention of the speaker, and the presence of subjects and objects without verbs – thus rendering sentences extremely elliptical. (Jones 1917, vii)

What Jones may have been experiencing is a social aspect of Ojibwe conversation combined with the result of Jones’ unfamiliarity with .29 The social aspect of

Anishnaabemowin has to do with Anishnaabe efficiency in speech, or an aesthetic preference for stating no more than is necessary to communicate an idea. Greater efficiency and economy in speech is also often sought by anticipating what others may already know regarding the context of a conversation. As a people expert in orality, memory training is practiced to a significant extent, and so extensively remembering what has been said and what has not been said often becomes second nature. The other special challenge facing Jones regarding translation may relate to declension or the use of the 4th person or obviative form, which has no exact analogue in English. As a result some meaning tends to drop out when translating Anishnaabemowin to English, making speech seem elliptical when in truth more information is present in a word than

29 Declension refers in this case to Anishnaabemowin 4th person verb and noun relationship. It is a referential shortcut that takes the place of masculine and feminine pronouns such as her or she, as does it provide a means for highlighting actors in a sentence. Declension is managed with -suffix changes in , and verbs, and with suffix changes in the conjunct form. Transitive verbs are able to communicate whether 3rd person (s/he) is referring to 4th person (background s/he) and so on, making for a high density of information encoded in a single word. If the subject and object are indicated by the verb itself (unlike in English) then a restatement of the subject and object in each sentence is not necessary. When a sentence is translated directly into English the implied subject or object in a transitive verb may on rare occasion not be included in the translation making the sentence seem vague in English, when in Anishnaabemowin it is very clear and direct. English relies heavily on pronouns such as 'he' or 'she' whereas Anishnaabemowin embeds subject and object in the verb itself.

47 it may seem from its pragmatic, yet sometimes incomplete, translation into English.

Jones may well have been aware of declension as well as Anishnaabe efficiency in speech, but such an awareness if present is obscured by this explanation, which is intended for an audience that is not familiar with Meskwaki or Ojibwe aesthetics. That is to say that Jones is preparing the reader for an apparent shift in linguistic aesthetics, which is more accurately a translation effect related to how Anishnaabemowin is coded than it is a concrete feature of Anishnaabemowin.

In final measure, the poetics of Ojibwa Texts come both from thematic elements of the stories themselves - kinship, abstract thinking, and humour - as is it born out of the language itself. Language bound poetics are both mechanical in the way words are encoded as are they social, given that a community's values may be encrypted in the way people speak with and relate to one another. These poetics, through aesthetics, conflate modesty and personal autonomy with a relatively strong observance of respect for individual and community self-determination. This results in the impressionistic suggestion of values finding favour over concrete classifications and categorizations. In this way individuals and communities may continue to self-author identity, purpose and perception in ways that are equally independent and free.

2.3 Megasiáwa William Jones

William Jones by many accounts was a kind and considerate person who expressed a personality both Meskwaki and American in thought and action. After the death of his mother when he was one winter old, William Jones’ Meskwaki (Fox Nation)

48 grandmother taught him for the nine years following:

After his mother's death, his grandmother brought him to her lodge. Here, for nine years, she took care of [him]. Katiqua could understand English, but would have nothing to do with the speaking of it; and so they two used always the Indian tongue. (Rideout 1912, 10, brackets mine)

Katiqua was a great influence on William Jones. She taught him Meskwaki language, and gave him a multifaceted traditional education: "She knew the medicinal values of many roots and herbs, and could brew from them remedies for various disorders external and internal. These things the child sought in the woods and on the prairies by his grandmother's side." (11) She died when he was ten years old and he went to live with his father. This relationship, between grandmother and grandson, would come to define his life.

The traditional Meskwaki education given to William Jones included the development of critical thinking through an experience of Meskwaki narrative. The same quality characterizes Ojibwa Texts: traditional teachings within the stories do not always appear explicitly or otherwise outwardly stated, but rather as impressions of occurrences. Combined impressions, much like the wash of emotions characteristic of expressionist painting, appear in place of tied-up-neat-with-a-bow fable-like morals.

More commonly, narratives pose questions intended to cause the readership to practice independent thinking. There are many stories in the texts that explain the origin of animals and features of the land through descriptions that are at times starkly funny, even sharply jarring. Stories of this kind represent an indulgent rhetorical counter response to Anishnaabe children's asking repetitive aggravating questions. If a child

49 were to ask for example why a certain thing is the way it is, a long story in which the adults can tease the young people might follow. If a child were to ask where Rock lichen or Spanish moss comes from they might get the Nenabozho jiid-scab story. The child might feel as if they had an affectionate trick played on them by having this story stand in for some methodical explanation, while the older relative will have had some well- earned innocent fun at the child’s expense. The child will come away entertained and better prepared to recognize future deceptions. The older relative will have gained some relief from answering endless questions.

When his grandmother died, William Jones was thrown into the European-descent world of his father who became his guardian. By his father he was supported in pursuing a formal western education which he did with great success. Similar to Charles

Eastman, William Jones came to work in a position of relatively high status within the hierarchies of the outside world while hoping to use that influence and position to make life better for his people. The dramatic and bitter events surrounding his death for some eclipse the work that he did during his life, and for that reason this conversation will not dwell on his death, save for allowing this brief mention of it - any interested reader can learn more on his or her own.

Fox people are closely related to Sauk people, and they were relegated to the same reservation in Southern Wisconsin.30 The Sauk (alternative spelling Sac) autonym is ozaawaki which means 'yellow-brown earth' whereas the Fox call themselves

30 The Ozaawaki (Sauk/Sac) and Meskwaki (Fox) were originally two separate peoples. During the 1700's French military pressure on the Meskwaki (Fox) caused the two nations to join.

50

Meskwaki or 'orange-red earth'.31 Linguist Ives Goddard in his 1987 article “Leonard

Bloomfield's descriptive and comparative studies of Algonquian,”32 suggests that Sauk and Fox are dialects of the same Algonquian family language, and that both are cousin languages to Anishnaabemowin. During Jones’ time with his grandmother she gave him a traditional education including teachings on Meskwaki kinship and language. This facility with Sac - Ozaawaki language likely contributed to his later skill in Fox - Meskwaki language and Anishnaabemowin.

Jones’ traditional education likely had a great influence on his character. On some occasions he was noted for his interest in talking to animals, talking to them as he would any person. When horses were nearby he was sometimes observed to make a special trip to go and talk to them:

As a little child he learned to imitate the calls of the birds and the squirrels, the wild prairie animals and the horses, and often amused himself, even in the East, by, as he said, 'talking to them.' Any horse was of interest, and sometimes on the crowded streets he would stop to 'say just a word to that tired old horse'. Whatever it was, the horse would prick up his ears and seem to understand. (Rideout 1912, 14)

31 Each of these are generally extended, though it is not implicit in the words to mean 'people of..'. In other words 'Ozaawakii' (Sac) means 'yellow earth' only, but is often translated as 'people of the yellow earth', and Meskwakii (Fox) means only 'red earth' but is often translated as 'people of the red earth', or more straightforwardly 'the yellow earth people' or 'the red earth people' respectively. It is also interesting to note that colors in refer not to narrower wavelengths of light as they do in English but to broad parts of the visible spectrum. 'Waabi' translated into English as 'white' refers to the pale light before the dawn, along with anything that shines or glows in a phosphorescent or metallic reflective fashion. 'Ozaawa' in Anishnaabemowin refers to yellow all the way through brown and so on. Specific colors are referred to by referencing something of that color, often a plant, or a feature of the nearby environment.

32 European traders missionaries and travelers tended during the Fur Trade to refer to most of the Eastern seaboard languages and interior as Algonquin as an umbrella term that grouped related languages such as Mi’kmaw and Ansihnaabemowin, Algonkin, and Abenaki together. Linguist Leonard Bloomfield echoed this convention by coining the term Algonquian to do the same thing only broadening this classification to include other related languages such as Menominii and Kikapu. Although useful to linguistics, this classification ironically has little resonance or meaning among first speakers of these so-called Algonquian languages.

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This suggests that even later in life he was still working from the knowledge his grandmother gave to him regarding expansive kinship. In terms of identity this meant that at least in part, possibly to a considerable degree Jones felt himself to be Meskwaki.

He had a social conscience resonant with Meskwaki values evidenced by his appreciation for animals, and possibly identifiable through his care and attention given to the peoples' stories. Though he never stated so outwardly, his intention may well have been to help preserve stories for his nation and his sister nations. This again seems to find reinforcement through the observation that the stories were recorded extensively, with great attention to detail in the original languages - in one case

Meskwaki, in Fox Texts, in the other Anishnaabemowin in Ojibwa Texts.

In Ojibwa Texts33 there are one hundred and forty one individual narratives by community orators34 making it what may be the largest collection of printed stories, written in Anishnaabemowin. 35 William Jones approached the transcription of Ojibwa

Texts as a de facto student of the Americanist tradition in anthropology, a practice significant in that it attempted the assertion that all world peoples are equal in

33 The full text of Part I may be found at http://www.archive.org/details/ojibwatextscoll07jonerich; Part II may be found at: http://www.archive.org/details/ojibwatextscoll00unkngoog. Other scholars have looked at the Jones Texts: Ridie E. W. Ghezzi wrote Ways of speaking: an ethnopoetic analysis of Ojibwe narratives University of Pennsylvania, 1990. Bruce White looked at The woman who married a beaver, told by Gagiigebinesii to William Jones (Ojibwa Texts, Vol. II, p. 251) in terms of gender roles extant during the fur trade in Ethnohistory, 1999, volume 46,no 1, pp. 109-147.

34 Each story has a name arbitrarily assigned it by the transcriber. The stories often flow together and seem to be part of a great cycle or narratives that all blend, the lines between them blurring at times. The idea that each story is a fixed formalized narrative only holds in some cases. Each telling seems to be an improvisation on a plot and set of themes with collectively understood persons involved.

35 Regarding extensiveness, these are the following page lengths of Ojibwa Texts: 542 pages (Vol. I) +785 pages (Volume II) = 1327 pages. Because half the pages are English and Half are in Ojibwemowin that means that 1327 / 2 = 663.5 pages in either English or Ojibwemowin. Each English page is roughly 360 words, meaning that the total length of the Ojibwa Texts is approximately 238,860 +/_ 10,000 words.

52 fundamental character.36 This was at the time and continues to be a rare perspective in the western world and is deserving of praise especially in light of the ethical bankruptcy that characterized anthropology at the time.37 Speaking to this, Vine Deloria in "Here

Come the Anthros", in Custer Died for Your Sins (1969) led a critique of anthropology in

Indigenous communities up until that point, asserting that anthropologists had been not in the business of community service, but more commonly in the business of mining the most essential ideas of communities, treating Indigenous ideologies on the whole as artifacts that could be dispassionately categorized, classified and systematically disassembled. Americanist anthropology was not innocent on all counts, though it did establish a precedent that ran markedly against the political trends of European-descent

America at the turn of the century. Regna Darnell in Invisible Genealogies: A History of

Americanist Anthropology (2001) describes the Americanist Tradition:

During the first half of the twentieth century, Franz Boas, Alfred Kroeber, Edward Sapir, Paul Radin, Robert Lowie, Ruth Benedict, Benjamin Whorf, Margaret Mead, Elsie Clews Parsons, and A. Irving Hallowell were among those who developed a collective Americanist paradigm around the cross-cultural study of meaning, based on participant-observation fieldwork and collection of linguistic and ethnographic texts. (Darnell 2001, xviii)

36 William Jones was among the first several people of native descent to become anthropologists in the Americanist tradition, that forwarded by anthropologists like Franz Boas, and linguist Leonard Bloomfield who interviewed for, translated and transcribed (with the help of the community members who told the stories) Menominee Texts (1928) and Plains Cree Texts: Volume XVI (1934).

37 The Americanist tradition was far from perfect in practice. One of the Americanists had the worst records of human rights abuses in the history of anthropology - Alfred Krober, who worked with, and whose policies contributed to the early death of a man he called Ishi. After the massacre of Ishi's family, the last of his people by miners in California, Krober set him up in a living exhibit is San Francisco - something of a of pseudo-scientific curio show. Krober is criticized for having driven Ishi to death through a frantic push to record the Yahi language while Ishi's health was already failing. Coupled with this, it may be revealing that through all of his life Ishi never told Krober his name.

53

Key to this is the idea of ‘cross-cultural study of meaning’ which when taken to its furthest extreme would allow room for Indigenous thought and life to be considered in the same conceptual framework, on the same level of intrinsic value as western thought. Dell Hymes in Now I Know Only So Far: Essays in Ethnopoetics (2003) cites

Franz Boas' introduction to the 1917 American Journal of Linguistics where he explains the basic tenet of the Americanist approach:

The most promising material for the study of certain aspects of artistic expression are the formal elements that appear with great frequency in the tales of all tribes... Most of these are stereotyped to such an extent, that little individual variation is found. Even in poorly recorded tales, written down in translation only... the sameness of stereotype formulas may sometimes be recognized. (Boas 1917, 7 in Hymes 2003, 17)

Part of what makes the Ojibwa Texts special is that having retained the original verbatim

Anishnaabemowin and William Jones’ very meticulous and direct translations, they defy this tendency to rarefy and reduce texts to expectations of stereotype. Far more common are texts that as Boas describes have been stripped from bilingual to English only oftentimes distilled to summary paragraphs. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft’s works are especially problematic in this regard as is apparent from William Clements’ Schoolcraft as Textmaker (1980) in which just this effect is detailed. Schoolcraft, then Indian Agent at Sault Ste. Marie, is possibly the most popularly heralded source of Ojibwe stories.

Among his many faults, though his intentions much like those of Duncan Campbell Scott may have been to patronizingly ennoble the stories - he changed texts to his liking so as to more resemble Christian stories as did he recombine texts and change their names over and over, republishing them time and again in different formats. Clements cites

54

Schoolcraft’s journal from January 26 1838: “I have weeded out many vulgarisms… and it has been sometimes found necessary, to avoid incongruity, to break a legend in two, or cut it short off.” (Schoolcraft 1851, 525 in Clements 1980, 181)

At the time, American Indian people were looked at by most European-descent

Americans in a way similar to how Middle Eastern people are looked at now. To have people of relatively high social status suggest that Indigenous people were human and accomplished in every meaningful way was possible because of a small contingent of

European-descent Americans, many of whom such as Frans Boas and Leonard

Bloomfield were Jewish in familial descent, and had a strong social awareness of injustice. Regarding this, William Jones worked as a part of the Americanist tradition under the guidance of Franz Boas who sought to understand peoples' stories worldwide as equally valuable. Boas was among the first westerners wielding institutional power to suggest that Indigenous stories had equal value to classical western literatures.

One working tenet of those in the Americanist tradition held that Indigenous spoken literatures like Ojibwa Texts were comparable in depth, scope and craftsmanship, to classical works such as the Mahabharata, Homer's Iliad, the Finnish

Kalevala, or the Norse Edda. Recording the Ojibwe Texts contributed to the concrete establishment of the extensive depth of narrative possessed by the people, building the case for the integrity of Anishnaabeg in the eyes of the European-descent Americas. In

Anthropology and Modern Life (1928) Franz Boas’ primary thesis has to do with re- aligning anthropology with community development while criticizing its past emphasis on pure science. In essence by saying “…almost every anthropological problem touches

55 our most intimate life” (Boas 1928, 16), Boas communicated to those would-be reformers in the field of anthropology that a science in the field of the humanities cannot continue to justify its own existence if it continues to be devoid of humanism.

As is the case of many disciplines, anthropology has expressed at times momentarily lucidity regarding its own biases and influences. Single individuals and their lineages of students shaped the field, and Boas was one of these. Frederick

Putnam, who directed William Jones’ fieldwork, and Truman Michelson both took great influence and firsthand direction from Boas, and he himself is listed as the editor to the

Publications of American Ethnology Series, of which the texts are included.38 In any case, the Americanist tradition in anthropology tended to see different peoples as inherently equal and much of this has to do with the general set by Frans Boaz for those that worked with him.

William Jones had not set out to be an anthropologist, rather he had been interested in western medicine but lacked the funding to continue in that discipline.

When it was suggested to him by Frederick Putnam that funding would be available to him in linguistic anthropology due to his experience with Meskwaki language, his academic path changed from medicine to anthropology. He would become the first

Indigenous person to hold a Ph.D. in anthropology and the fourth person to hold a Ph.D. in linguistic anthropology.

38 Refer to Darnell, Regna. Invisible Genealogies : A History of Americanist Anthropology, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. Frans Boas was an American of German Jewish descent. His grandparents identified as Jewish while his parents had embraced enlightenment era ideologies and identity, a formal diversion from an adherence to Jewish religion. Boas did not personally identify as Jewish though he was outspoken against anti-Semitism. He was encouraged to think for himself, and it has been suggested this singular condition contributed to his ability to develop theories that did not align themselves perfectly with the fashion of the times in anthropology.

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Because William Jones was of the Meskwaki Nation, a sister Nation to the

Anishnaabe Nation, this may have allowed him at the outset to understand the value of the stories with less judgmental dismissiveness than others in his discipline had previously employed. His personal familial position and sense of responsibility to his community, together with the influence of the Americanist tradition may have been what led to his very careful and methodical transcription of the texts. His traditional

Meskwaki education emphasized meticulousness and intricacy in labor, and was tempered by balanced innovative design. This, coupled with the sense that he might look after the stories in the same way he might care for the stories given to him by his grandmother, also likely contributed to the great faithfulness with which the texts were transcribed.

2.4 Contributors to Ojibwa Texts

The Ojibwa Texts are bilingual, transcribed first in Anishnaabemowin and then translated into English by William Jones along with the help of the Anishnaabeg that told them to Megasiáwa William Jones in 1903, 1904 and 1905 along the north shore of Lake

Superior and along into the interior lakes of what is present-day northern Minnesota.

Understanding that these texts represent classical ancestral spoken literature, it follows that the contributing orators are also the authors of the texts, while William Jones acted more or less as transcriber and lead editor. Accordingly, as the major contributing orators represent a group of collaborative authors it follows that they receive focus as authors, as opposed to second-classed as 'informants', a title used typically by even the

57 relatively socially conscious Americanist tradition anthropologists. Respecting this intent, the first major contributor to Ojibwa Texts was Gaagigebinesikwe (double-vowel rendering)39, 'Forever-Bird-Woman', her English name being Mrs. Marie Syrette.40

Megasiáwa William Jones met Gaagigebinesikwe at Fort William, Ontario. She related at the time that she grew up at Lake Nipigon, northeast of Thunder Bay, so in many ways

Gaagigebinesikwe's oratory may be considered to be a mixture of styles learned at Lake

Nipigon and Lake Superior. Writing in specific of Gaagigebinesikwe - Mrs. Marie Syrette,

William Jones relates: “She grew up at Lake Nipigon where dwell Ojibwas of Lake

Superior and to which place come those that live on the height of land and along the rivers flowing towards .” (1917, xvi) The importance of watershed and its relation to how stories travel is apparent in this statement. There is a fundamental relationship between stories and water that can be understood at least in part by understanding overlapping maps of watersheds and drainages, these being the

39 The Anishnaabemowin component of Ojibwa Texts is printed in Jones’ own innovated orthography in which he uses to represent the shortening or lengthening of vowels, along with previously agreed upon associations between letters of the roman alphabet and sounds in the language. A switch to Nyholm Nichols double vowel system may be beneficial. This could be easily done with a find replace once the text was digitized with text embedded, which itself would likely be a considerably labour intensive project even granted advances in optical character recognition. This is because hand set type of the kind E.J. Brill did in 1917 was not perfectly aligned and because print pressure was not controlled exactly, leading to occasional bleeding edges on letters or unfilled letters. Because they were accurately transcribed, these texts may be useful to the Anishnaabe Nation present day as a spoken or print learning material. Because of the meticulousness with which these stories were recorded, it is this authors opinion that that omissions and editorial bias may have changed the stories less than other printed works of the same time. The safest way to continue the transfer of traditional stories is through speech. Potential Anishnaabe orators, storytellers, and writers may wish to consult an easy to read (double vowel) version of these texts some of which may be found at http://www.bemidjistate.edu/airc/oshkaabewis/issues/ - The Oshkabewis Native Journal. The texts in the original diacritic mark print in full, may be found at www.archive.org. Paper copies are somewhat rare. There is at least one copy in the reserve colletions at the State Historical Society Library in Madison, Wisconsin.

40 The orthography used here will be of the Nyholm/Nichols convention of what is sometimes called the Nichols - Fiero convention (Charles Fiero was a missionary who along with various Anishnaabe communities including Red Lake helped develop the double vowel system in Minnesota in the late 1950's). It would most properly be called by the name of the communities or individuals as well that helped Fiero author it. Patricia Ningewance noted that the Anishnaabemowin Teg language conference held every year in Thunder bay as early as 1999 agreed that it would be a good, if temporary system to use to create the greatest continuity across the Anishnaabewaki, the Ojibwe Nation.

58 highways or pathways stories would have traveled.

Secondly, William Jones met Gaagigebinesi, 'Forever-Bird' John Pinesi at Fort

William also.41 Gaagigebinesi was familiar with the Anishnaabe Nation lands from

Manitoulin Island to the Sault, from the north shore of Lake Superior to Grand Marais.

William Jones also relates that Gaagiigebinesii knew the area of Rainy-River, Lake of the

Woods somewhat, but was most familiar with the area including the Kanustiquia River over to Baawiting, Sault St. Marie, 'rapids'. By coincidence, Kanustiquia, possibly an approximation of gaa-ministigweyaa, 'river with islands', was Megasiáwa's Meskwaki

(Fox Nation) grandmother's name.

The third major contributor to Ojibwa Texts was Waasaagooneshkang which

Megasiáwa gives as 'He that leaves the imprint of his foot shining in the snow.'42 Some of the meaning of this name may have been implied as by itself Waasaagooneshkang translates to 'where there is snow shining '. Of this man Jones relates:

“He is now an old man, bent with age, living at Pelican Lake, near the Bois Forte

Reservation, in Minnesota. He grew up on Rainy River, Rainy Lake, and the Lake of the

Woods.” (1917, xvii)

41 Fort William was in Northern Ontario Kaministiquia River where it opens into Lake Superior. Port Arthur, Neebing and McIntyre became Thunder Bay in 1970.

42 Rendered in Nyholm/Nichols version of the double vowel system, waasaagoon 'shining snow (on the ground)' is a possibility. The final part of the word '-äckąnk' might render as ikeang or some conformation indicating 'creation of', though it is most likely a simple locative or location indicator. There is also the possibility that the first part of the word is waasaakone, 'it gives light, shows light'. Following this latter interpretation the -kang may be a locative resulting in an approximate translation of: 'where it shines'. In other words if the translation given at the time was 'he that leaves the imprint of his foot shining in the snow' both the snow and the footprint would have been implied and inferred by the name rather than directly stated as part of the word. Jones used his own diacritic mark orthography. ‘c’ in Jones Ojibwe writing for example is the ‘sh’ sound in ‘wish’; ‘j’ is the ‘zh’ sound in ‘measure’; ä is the long vowel sound of ‘say’ (now expressed in the double vowel system as ‘e’). Changing these texts over to double vowel or syllabics may improve their intelligibility and usefulness as a Nishnaabe learning material.

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The fourth contributor was Midaasooganj, 'Ten Claw'. Megasiáwa met

Midaasooganj at Bois Fort. Midaasooganj was familiar with both Red Lake and Rainy

River. Bois Forte has three sub-communities currently: Nett Lake, Asabiikone- zaaga`iganiing, "at the Lake for Netting," Lake Vermilion, Onamanii-zaaga'iganiing, 'at the lake with red ochre,' and Deer Creek. Speaking of Midaasooganj, Jones relates: “He visits with the Red Lake Ojibwas on the west, and with those of Rainy River on the north and east. He is a man of middle age, of strong physique, energetic, well built, intelligent, and of the number frequently called upon to take leading part in ceremony.”

(1917, xvii)

The fifth major contributor to the texts was Maajiigaaboo 'He begins to rise to his feet.' Of Maajiigaaboo Jones tells us: “He is chief of the Bear Island Ojibwas of Leech

Lake Minnesota. Unfortunately but two of his narratives appear in the collection. His help was utilized in another way, - in going rapidly over the whole collection to see what was familiar to his group of Ojibwas, and what was not.” (1917, xvii) So Maajiigaaboo contributed both as author and editor, his skills limited to neither station.

All of these authors contributed in different ways to the texts. In all the places listed were Rainy River, Leech Lake, Red Lake, Lake Nipigon, Lake Superior, Fort William,

Bois Forte (Lake Vermillion, Deer Creek, Nett Lake) and Lake of the Woods. In all of these locations water is mentioned, reinforcing the contextualization of narrative medicine as a practice that inherently involves water as a means of influence and origin for narrative medicine. These authors are of varying backgrounds and skill-sets all having in common their knowledge of land and the narratives that people the land.

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Anishnaabe scholar Basil Johnston in Honour Earth Mother (2003) explains that medicine and the land are closely related:

When we are sick and need care to nurse us back to health, Mother Earth’s meadows, forests and shorelines are lush with berries, plants roots, seeds and resins that bear the elixir of health and life. Our ancestors called medicine ‘Mashki-aki, the strength of the earth for its capacity to infuse the enfeebled sick with energy and vitality. (Johnston 2003, viii)

Narrative practice and the poetic understanding of medicine as the ‘strength of the earth’ reaffirms Anishnaabe place on the land as does it bind the three – narrative, land and medicine, in a clear pattern of relation.

2.5 Layered Intertwined Worlds in Gaagigebinesikwe’s ‘The Youth Who Died and Came Back to Life’

In Ojibwa Texts, Gaagigebinesikwe’s aadizookewin43 William Jones titles “The

Youth Who Died and Came Back to Life,” (1919, 3-29) a young man suffers from ongoing illness, and finally dies. 'Kitchimikana owaabandan.'; 'A great road he saw.' (2|3)44

Aaniin dash giiwen ge-dizhinawaad abinoojiiyensan 45 In such a way so reportedly (they) may perceive (a) small child

43 Aadizookaan is an animate noun meaning both traditional story and something approximating the English 'legend'. Aadizookaan can also interestingly refer to a spirit, or person in a story and so the person of interest and the story both may be understood as spirits which though separate are part of the same overall pattern of existence. Aadizookewin refers to ‘the way of story-craft’ or storytelling, it could also translate as ‘narrative practice’. Alternative spellings have ‘s’ in place of ‘z’ as in aadisookaan, aadisookewin.

44 The English translation follows the Anishnaabemowin text page by page. When 2|3 appears, this notation is meant to indicate that the first page is the Anishnaabemowin original and the second refers to the English translation page.

45 William Jones’ orthography is well structured, intuitive and compressed. Still, being rich in diacritical marks, it is difficult to render on a standard keyboard. In the interests of making it intelligible to the majority of language students studying Ojibwemowin currently, it has been changed into double vowel. To communicate the greatest understanding, and to help the language learner it is followed by a word for word translation aided primarily by these dictionaries: A Concise Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe (1995) Selam Ross (Cass Lake)/Earl Nyholm (Mille Lacs) /John Nichols; Eastern Ojibwa-Chippewa-Ottawa Dictionary (1993) Reta Sands (Walpole)/Hap Mcue (Curve Lake)/Richard Rhodes, and Irene Snache (Rama).

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And they say what was he to behold but a little child (4|5)46

Following this, what looked to be a little child, he noticed that the little being, likely a memengwesi47, was drawing behind it a cradleboard, that it was struggling to carry. The youth, intrigued, followed fast but was unable even encumbered as it was to catch up with the little person. The memengwesiwag, the Little People, as with all of those persons that appear in ancestral narrative, contemporary or historical, exist as ultimately indefinable. That is the at the heart of their meaning - they are conceptual, physical beings, suggesting abstract narrative spaces - meeting places where community people may collectively gather to author and experience story. Cree and Anishnaabe people share a narrative tradition that regards the Little People with respect. Edward

Ahenakew relates one story of the Little People told to him by his grandmother that appears in the 1995 reprint of Voices of the Plains Cree (1973):

Let me tell you my grandmother's story about mā-mā-kwā-se-suk (mêmêkwêsiwak)48… She was No-tō-kwā-wi-ku-mik (Old Woman' s Lodge), the sister of Chief Poundmaker; and she said that she had known people who had seen the little people. "It seems that these mā-mā-kwā- se-suk (mêmêkwêsiwak) live beneath the ground in the sand hills or on

46 Much of the original Anishnaabemowin word order are communicated in William Jones translation, giving the reader some sense for the syntax of the language.

47 Memengwesi is sometimes translated as 'little person'. They are not faeries or water nymphs as the word is often translated. They are a kind of mysterious cross-dimensional being, that is taken seriously and has some correlation with medicine practices. They experience time at a different rate, and those that spend even a few days with them will come back to this world noticing that many years have passed. They are respected in many ways, one of which is that they continue even in the present day to live much the same as they always had, having taken little influence from the western world. Their actions and intentions are approached in general with respectful distancing and serious consideration.

48 ‘mêmêkwêsiwak’ is spelled in accordance with LeClaire, Nancy, Harold Cardinal, Emily Hunter, and Earle H. Waugh. Alberta Elders' Cree Dictionary, Alperta Ohci Kehtehayak Nehiyaw Otwestamâ Kewasinahikan. (1998). 'ā' .

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river banks. They are very small, no taller that a two-year-old child. The people who saw them, my grandmother said, were startled. So were the little people, for they are sensitive and very shy. With their arms bent, they tried to hide their faces, strange little faces, with protruding foreheads and sharply tilted chins that enclosed the other features as in a hollow." “‘You speak to the strangers,' they said to one of their number, whose face was less buckled together. 'You look more human than the rest of us do.' But the little one was too shy to speak, and yet it was the Cree language that they used. The women noticed how nervous the little things were, and so they moved a short distance away, and when they looked again the creatures had vanished. There were tracks, but they led nowhere; then on the side of a little hill, where the sand was disturbed… they did not want to look further, or trouble the little ones. When they told their experience to the Old Men, they found that it agreed with stories of former times about these harmless, shy beings." (No-tō-kwā-wi-ku-mik in Ahenakew 1973 in Ahenakew and Buck (Eds.) 1995, 67 italics Ahenakew)

As in stories of memengwesiwag, enigmatic-sounding truthfulness often finds criticism as being elliptical in Anishnaabe and Cree narrative. Defending this presence of

Anishnaabe-ness in ancestral narrative aadizookewin, Gerald Vizenor's character Almost

Browne in Hotline Healers (1997) says: "We are the unnameable. We have always been unnameable." (8) This basic elemental quality of the one-from-nothing beings defies labeling and classification and so empowers individuals to understand themselves and the world, apart from the confines of pre-conceived determinations. After a time he decides to leave the little person, feeling it 'wise to leave it alone.'

Continuing down the path the youth sees the following: indigo gegoo de-gamiwaasagooteg 49 it is as if something hung sparkling

49 Individual word translations are inspired by those in Rand Valentine's Nishnaabemwin Reference Grammar (2001). Valentine includes markers for word character and quality (animate, inanimate, conjunct independent). These have been left out for simplicity's sake, though in future work we may do well to include them. Individual word translations represent a best estimation of what the orator-author’s intended and are open to critique and revision.

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It seemed as if something hung across the path sparkling with light (4|5)

He presently hears a sound: indigo biidweweyanimaad it is as if the wind makes noise as it comes baawitig madwewezhiwang rapids made noise at a certain place

It was a rapid stream that flowed with raging torrent (4|5)

Here the orator Gaagiigebinesiikwe - ‘Forever Bird Woman’ - Mrs. Marie Syrette, crafts artful description to bring the listener into an immersive experience of the place.

Rapids symbolically represent places where crossing between states of being may be difficult. Death journeys in Anishnaabe stories and stories worldwide often involve traveling on water, whether by crossing a river, lake, marsh or ocean, and water as a variable, ever-changing thing, provides the medium comprising transformative thresholds between worlds.

Much of the poetic cast of these old stories is dreamlike, shaping a poetically vibrant, even iridescently understanding of the world: Nenaboozho50 narratives help the mind through playful contortions; the stories of the mishipeshiw illuminate the mystery resident in the Great Lakes, reminding us that the water around us is alive with meaning and power; the stories of windigo explore the cruel character of greed while imparting to us a respect for winter; the stories of the memengwesiwag, the Little

People, remind us that we are far from alone and that beneath each layer of meaning in

50 The word Nenaboozho, Nanabush, Nenabush, and Winabozho in Anishnaabemowin and Ojenglish may well be related to older words for white rabbit (compare for example to Menominii 'Menapus' meaning ‘white rabbit’). A white rabbit was just one of the preferred forms taken by the Menominii Menapus. Compare also to Kluskap which in Abenaki means 'the one from nothing', another appropriately vague and impressionistic description of the being referenced.

64 the land there is another; the stories of the animkiig, the thunderers, remind us that the world above is as infinite as the worlds extending in any direction including those concentrically rippling within. Anishnaabe scholar Basil Johnston asserts that it is up to the individual to read the patterns in the land: “Men and women watching the plants, insects, birds and animals will or ought to learn something. When they do, their eyes, ears, mind and heart are opened at once to something that they didn’t know before.

This is revelation.” (Johnston 2003, xvi) Aki in western Anishnaabemowin or Ki in eastern Nishnaabemwin, Aski in Cree, means 'land, ground, soil, earth, and universe'.

(LeClaire, Cardinal, Hunter, and Waugh 1998; Nichols and Nyholm 2001) In other words, the land is all, and the land is alive - everything from a stone to a star.

Taken together these narratives tell us that the depth of meaning resident in the world around us, like the world of dreams has no measure. Anishnaabe poetics are tied to dreams as dreaming is cultivated as a creative skill - a means of seeing possibility that any community member can develop and use.51 The young man's journey continues: mii dash waabamad azhaawaagoozhinininid iniw mitigon so also he saw those that lay across those logs mii go nanagaagooboosinid so very much they were moving back and forth in the water

And then he saw that lying there was a log which reached across, and it was made to quiver by the force of the rapids. (6|7)

mii dash imaa ayiinabid mii ondzhiwaabamaad animoshag so also there those that are so they are seen dogs niindawakana namadabinid

51 As people having suffered injury, illness or a particular kind of condition such as blindness, or extreme old age will due to their perspective and experience be more likely to have distinctly useful dreams. This kind of emphasis on dreams has a democratizing effect, as the experiences of the least fortunate or oddest people have at times the greatest propensity to lead the way for the community as a whole. Visions that come from fever, injury or fasting all have special potential and it is often these experiences that inform story-making of the kind found in Ojibwa Texts.

65 on the side of the road those which sit

Thereupon, as roundabout he looked from where he was, he beheld the dogs which sat on both sides of the road. (6|7)

Later he is told: nibiwa imaa gaawiin zhaabwiisiiwag; mii imaa endanaabaawewaad binaandawenizhaa many there do not they do not pass through; so there they may drown crawling ogoowaad ingiw gaanidaagoodagiaawaad animoshan in the past? those they are unkind to dogs

Many do not pass through there; for in the place where they drown, they are made to fall off the log when they come by the (dogs) because in times past they have always been cruel to dogs (10|11)52

Passing the dogs without incident, the youth follows the road, arriving where: mii dash weweni waabandang wiigiwaaman so also clearly he saw them the nangwana wayaasitegin pane go it turns out those that shone so then very much miziwe debaandang everywhere as far as one could see

Thereupon in plain view he saw the wigwams; in truth, they glistened in the light as far as he was able to see. (8|9)

mii go ezhiaapichi bangagitwnig banganinig dash gaye so very much they move at such a rate those that are still those that are peaceful also as well

But yet in solemn silence they stood, and very still was it roundabout the place. (8|9)

The image invokes a stillness characteristic of death, to have the setting reflect the main theme of the story foregrounds the land as does it create a kind of parallelism between

52 A similar story appears in: Jenness, Diamond, The Ojibway Indians of Parry Island, their social and religious life. Nat. Museum Canada Bulletin 78 Anthropological series No. 17; 1935. In this death-journey there were logs laid across a stretch of water filled with crayfish. If a person were to fall in crossing they would become a crayfish also and join the thousands below.. This was somewhat determined by the reaction of the dogs - they would attack if that person had been cruel to dogs in the course of their life.

66 the surroundings and the experience of the persons involved in the story. Not only are the dead taken with a stillness, a timelessness, so is the land they inhabit.

Seeing a single home standing by itself, the youth enters. An old woman is seated there. She speaks to him: niyaa noojzhis wegonen banaanjigaman oma bizhaaiyan? odigoon ah my grandchild what is sought here that you come towards she says to him maajaan giiwenh odigoon geyabii giin giwiyaasininiw odigoon leave allegedly she says to him still you you are of the flesh she says to him gaawiin maji-gitinendaagozisii oma zhi-biizhaaiyan no bad for you it seems here in a certain way you come towards gigiigendaana aandii nongom ayaayan? do you know where now you are? gaawiin odinaan no he says to her mii sa oma jiibayag endajiodedoowaad so very much here the ancestor spirits live as in a town

"Ah me! my grandson, what have you come to get that you should come to this place?" he was told. "Depart! go back home!" he was told. "Still you are of the flesh," he was told. "It is not yet your time to come here. Do you know where now you are?" "No," he said to her. "Well here is where the ghosts of the dead dwell in a town." (8|9)

In this passage as well, the given translation for jiibayag is 'ghosts'. In English 'ghost' often carries a negative connotation. In Anishnaabemowin jiibayag approximates

'ancestor spirit' and has a positive connotation. This place of the ancestors, is described as such: mii go dibishkoo giigiijigag ezhinang dibishkoo waawaategaa so very just like day it seemed just like shining lights izhinaagwag they were moving

And then just the same as day it seemed to him, the same as the shooting lights (of the north) look. (14|15)

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In agreement with this description, Nyholm and Nichols give the Anishnaabemowin for

'the northern lights' as 'jiibayag niimi'idiwag' or 'the ancestor spirits are dancing’. Later the youth reveals that his grandmother has also told him: giishpin waabandaman waawaateg mii gimishmisinaabaniig minawaa if there are seen flashing lights so your grandfathers past also zhi-niimi'idiwaad giigadinendam they are dancing you should think

"If ever you see the flashing light (of the north) then are your grandfathers of old once more dancing together, shall you think." (20|21)

The land here emerges as an active agency, alive and present. The elements of the land, in this case the northern lights, recall kinship and relation. Never then from that time on, when the youth sees the lights, will he feel alone. What's more, when he sees the lights he will be reminded of the celebration and dance of the ancestors, and he will likely take heart from this. An alive world is one wherein individuals do not feel alone but rather part of a great family of relations. Even when one becomes lost on a journey, the understanding of relation and kinship resident in the land is a constant help to the traveler. A traveler is less likely to feel lost or to panic in a landscape that is alive with familial helpers and friends.

In a humorous aside, the youth's grandmother complains that he smells bad, thereby implying that all living people smell bad to the dead. (14|15) The youth later witnesses the ancestors dancing, the end of the dance becoming chaotic and the ancestors pushing each other happily. His grandmother then tells him it is time for him to go home because they are now burying his body. (16|17) On the way back down the

68 road, the youth encounters the same small being he did at the beginning of the story and begins to follow it. Again unable to catch it, he gives up and, remembering that his grandmother told him to go quickly, he abandons the chase and heads back down the road from where he came. This repeated motif creates a symmetry which adds to the overall mirror-like quality of the story. That the living world reflects the ancestral world is reinforced by the reflection of the beginning with the end, a full circle being described as the youth passes from life to death and back. (18|19)

The youth finally comes upon a great fire in the road, and it occurs to him that the only way to cross over to the world of the living would be to die from the world of the dead. So: mii dash gaa-izhichiged gaa-izhi-abagisood so and what he did he threw himself mii dash ginendam aw oskinawe owiinge dadagoobidzhigaasood so and thought this young man very much he was wrapped

And what he did was to fling himself (into the fire)...and then conscious became the youth while he was all wrapped (for burial) (18|19)

The youth comes awake thirsty and asks his mother for water. She gives him lukewarm water and he explains that he has had a dream. She tells him that he was not asleep but dead. This surprises him and he says: mamagaadagamigi dash iw gaa-inendaman it was wonderful and this that I thought

"It then was a wonderful thing, that which I thought." (20|21)

This story explores death, understanding it as a change that is a natural and necessary

69 part of life. The dance of the dead is a celebration - one that is occurring when the northern lights are visible. In this way the orator, Gaagiigebinesiikwe, Forever

Thunderbird Woman, who very likely learned the story or its elements where she grew up at Lake Nipigon, brings the land alive while calming peoples’ worries about the uncertainties of death. The story is rich in humour, vivid imagery, setting description, and ideas that challenge the mind to understand the world as having great depth. The mundane53 world in this story becomes an impossibility, eclipsed by the sense that the world is alive - an experience in mamaandaawiziwin, mysterious wonder.

2.6 Kinship and Land in Episode I of Gaagigebinesi’s ‘Wemiisaakwaa, Clothed in Fur’

This story is funny and beautiful, illustrative of Anishnaabe traditional and ancestral thought related to kinship and the rich depth of meaning found in the land.

Like many of the stories it entertains while providing a map for ancestral understandings of the world.

53 The comparison of languages can reveal something of the hidden assertions languages make. For instance the English word mundane means, according to the 1998 fourth edition Collins Compact Dictionary ‘everyday, ordinary, and therefore not very interesting’. It comes from the Latin word ‘mundi’ meaning ‘world’. In Anishnaabemowin ‘aki’ or ‘ki’ in its eastern form means ‘world, universe, land, ground, earth’, this definition arrived at from conflating the definitions of the Nychols Nyholm A Concise Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe (2000), and the Richard Rhodes (co- authored in reality by many Anishnaabe community members, among them Irving Hap McCue of Curve Lake, and Reta Sands of Walpole) Eastern Ojibwa-Chippewa-Ottawa Dictionary (1993). In Anishnaabemowin the idea of ‘the mundane’ comes as an English import only if it makes it into the community consciousness with any traction. It is a primary source of psychological tension experienced by Anishnaabeg living and working in colonized or otherwise western social spaces. ‘aki’ I Anishnaabemowin suggests inherent value to existence and daily life. The comparison of the dictionary definitions for ‘aki’ and the way in which the older word for ‘world’ is used to mean ‘everyday or uninteresting’ when imported into English emerges as a deep and bitter irony. In other words how can life that is so precious and wondrous from the traditional Anishnaabe perspective be reimagined as lifeless, dull and mundane?

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Wemiisaakwaa54, Clothed-In-Fur, told by Gaagigebinesi begins with a boy, who having become a skilled hunter decides to leave his older sister's house and go traveling.

Shortly he arrives at a village, finding a place to stay with an old woman there. He calls her grandmother, and though they are not related by blood, a grandmother-grandson relationship is that which best describes how they come to understand one another.

Two young women come to visit him: gabe-giizhig gii-odaminoowag niizh (m)ii dash oshkiniigikweg omiigidshi'igoon 55 all day they played two so then young women they annoyed him (3'obv. -> 3 sing.) majiikikwewisag gaawiin dash ominwenimaasiin disruptive little women negative also he did not like them

All day long they played. Now, by two maidens was he annoyed, - by the Foolish Maidens; and he did not like them. (208|209)

Wemisaakwaa - Clothed In Fur asks his grandmother to protect where they are sleeping, a small traditional home, with a net fence, so that he might be safe from the girls who find him very attractive. This is a common motif in comedy, a man or woman trying to hide from and escape a very annoying woman or man who finds her or him very attractive. It helps to frame the rest of the story with a lightness characteristic of most of the Ojibwa Texts.

54 Many of the names used for persons in the texts describe their appearance, unlike the more common understanding of names given for a dream, vision or occurrence. This is to reinforce for the listener, a descriptive image of the person spoken of.

55 Obv. refers to obviative, the non-focal, secondary or background subject in this sentence. The apostrophe behind the number 3 indicates the obviative or fourth person. This then is a transitive verb, a verb that takes a subject, In Ojibwemowin, transitive verb qualities are shown by different verb endings (who affects who; whether it is 'I affect you', 1->2, first person ('I') affects second person ('you'); we affect him, we->3, we affect third person ('him or her') and so on). Rand Valentine authored a chart based on John Nichol's dissertation, showing these word endings. Nishnaabemwin Reference Grammar (Valentine, 2001) also has a very useful description of transitive and intransitive verbs.

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In the middle of the night the two women return and spend a good amount of the time trying to get through the net. When morning comes, they finally leave, and

Wemiisaakwaa, Clothed-in-Fur resolves to leave; and so begins a series of escape attempts each more elaborate than the last. Upon departure, the old woman says to

Wemiisaakwaa: gigidimaagiz noojis gaawiin gidaanaganaasiig aapiji gizhiikaawag I pity you my grandson negative you cannot not leave them behind very (fast) do they run

You are to be pitied my grandson. You could not leave them behind, so exceedingly fast do they walk. (208|209)

He sets off anyway, and after running hard for most of the day the women can be heard close behind saying: gigidimaagizi wemiisaakwaa niindaanagajiwe'enendang he is pitied clothed-in-fur (if) he thinks I can leave them behind

56 gaawiin miijaasinoon awe aki negative it is not big enough this earth

To be pitied is Clothed-In-Fur if 'I can leave them behind' he thinks. (210|211)

Here is a case where the humour is not lost in translation as it were and comes across in English very much intact. One of the greatest challenges in approaching the

Ojibwa Texts has to do with representing Anishnaabe humour in an accurate way. This is difficult because traditionally Anishnaabe people have a very healthy, natural, open and funny way of talking about sex. The sexual humour in Ojibwa Texts is so extreme-

56 'Awe' is the animate identifier for 'earth' aki. Though non-determinative, animacy can be suggestive of perception. That is that the earth is animate agrees with the idea that it is somehow alive, imbued with active power, or agency. The language carriers many nuanced elements that help orient perspective. Ojibwemowin teacher Rand Valentine in a recent article said, that to lose a language: "It’s like burning your libraries... It’s like killing your past.” (Valentine in Stein, Jason, Weight of Words; http://www.uwalumni.com/weight_words.aspx, University of Wisconsin Alumni Association, retrieved Jan. 3 2012) The language itself carries countless embedded ideas - motifs, aesthetics, and indexes - that in a subtle way remind the speaker of how the ancestors understood the world.

72 seeming in English as to come across as outlandish. It is important to remember that in the context of ancestral aesthetics, this kind of humour is natural and meant to provide the listener with some entertainment while demonstrating by example that an individual’s own thinking may be free and playful.

Humour is a powerful aspect of ancestral and contemporary stories as laughter has the power to disrupt conceptual space. Once the patterned thinking of the audience has been disrupted, the audience (divided a moment before) can be brought together to contemplate in a less restricted fashion any new ideas that may be presented. Humour as a rhetorical device establishes a rapport with an audience such that difficult material may be introduced without ‘losing’ the audience either to despair or anger. Additionally, humour can help establish trust in different ways. An audience may come together by laughing at the same things thus creating a sense of a unified consciousness. An audience’s trust may be gained through the use of humour, because getting someone to laugh can act as a kind of gifting; having received a gift (laughter), an audience may wish to offer a return gift. As an educator, the return gift asked for might be a brief time of listening non-judgmentally.

In this work, humour plays an integral role in the process of regaining community morale through the authorship of perspectives which result in balanced outlooks. In other words it brings about improved wellbeing and for that reason may be understood as a kind of narrative medicine. Gerald Vizenor relates medicine to humor in Manifest

Manners (1993) noting also that the preeminence of Anishnaabe humor has often been censored out of history and transcriptions of old stories:

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The tribes have seldom been honored for their trickster stories and rich humor. The resistance to tribal humor is a tragic law. Laughter over that comic touch in tribal stories would not steal the breath of destitute children; rather, children would be healed with humor, and manifest manners would be undermined at the same time. (Vizenor 1994, 83)

Accordingly, let us remember that narrative acting as medicine is that positive force of empowerment or enhanced community well-being that comes about through collective community authorship of perspective and worldview (narrative imagination). So, the two - narrative medicine and narrative imagination - emerge inextricably linked.

Humour can then be understood as an aspect of both narrative imagination and narrative medicine. Drew Hayden Taylor in ‘Whacking the Indigenous Funny Bone’ from his edited collection Me Funny (2005) says:

A good portion of native humour springs from a sense of survival. Frequently, it’s a reaction against the world. And anything born of survival will have barbs and sharp teeth attached, to provide protection and refuge. Humour can also take the bruises and scars of depression, oppression and suppression and act as a salve or tonic to take the pain away. It often works as an antidote, even. (69)

With regards to Cree and Anishnaabe narrative, humour is illustrated and reflected in the actions of the elder brother and in other playful beings of Anishnaabe and Cree worldview. Humor appears as a part of narrative medicine and much like a catalyst aids or clears the way for the actions of other medicines. Emphasis on laughter partners, as a result, with self-determination to provide communities and individuals with the emotional strength and uplifted spirit necessary to meet everyday challenges.

Tomson Highway, Cree playwright, humorist and novelist, describes Cree language as a living thing. In his essay “Why Cree is the Funniest Language of All,”

(Highway in Taylor 2005, 159-168) Cree language is the result of the intimations of the

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‘laughing deity’ and so it teaches its speakers to laugh. Alternatively, the ‘laughing deity’ is also the ‘crying deity’ and so it teaches its speakers how to cry.57 The ability to mourn, or to cry Highway asserts, is key in coping with the fallout of ongoing injustice. Each action whether laughter or tears, finds strength in the other and through this balance complements the language itself. Along with all of its poetry, the Cree language becomes an ally in resistance to any aversion, and lifetime partner in bringing about social change.

Old stories are gifts from the ancestors, meant to provide a better, more enjoyable life for future generations, and are not to be judged by the intimations of the church, no matter how distant from 'proper' storytelling they may seem. Many of the stories furthermore, namely those with sexual content have not been looked at in academic contexts because of the fear that they will be judged as unwholesome by a greater audience. Stan Cuthand in the introduction to the 1995 reprint of Voices of the

Plains Cree (1973), stories collected by Edward Ahenakew58, explains that Ruth Buck, the editor for the text made editorial choices based on her perception of how stories would go over with a non-Cree audience:

57 The laughing deity that Tomson Highway is Cahkâpîs or Wîsahkêcâhk in Cree traditions is a relative of or maybe the same entity as the Anishnaabe Nenaboozho (Nanabush) and the Menominii Menapus. Where possible in this work we will out of respect try to limit direct references to these persons. There is a common though not universally maintained conscription against direct naming of the elder brother (there are other walk-around terms) and related beings unless there is snow on the ground, and we are speaking in the proper context of telling a story.

58 In the introduction to Voices of the Plains Cree (1973) Stan Cuthand paints Ahenakew as conflicted - a missionary who may have hurt Cree thinking by supporting through complicity the wiles of the Anglican hierarchies, while his dedication to Cree consciousness old stories and language nevertheless endured: “He looked down on people who practiced Cree beliefs and rituals. He never talked about this to me, but I sometimes think he had a real struggle inside himself. On the one hand he was writing stories about the past so they would be preserved for posterity, before they were forgotten, while the old men were still alive. At the same time he was preaching the gospel, so there were two sides to him. One was hidden from us because we were too young to see.” (Cuthand in Ahenakew and Buck (Etd.) 1995, xix)

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One story which was left out was typical of Indian humour, but may not have "translated" well in her eyes… I had spent two or three days translating it, Mrs. Buck told me, "You know, that 's silly," and she left it out. (Cuthand in Ahenakew and Buck (Eds.) 1995, xii)

This was a story special in that it, in a way, self-consciously and endearingly makes fun of the way in which pawakan, lice are conceived. This establishes a tone that opposes fundamentalism in Cree spirituality while alternatively returning respect to an animal that has often been thought of only in negative terms. Of the story Cuthand says: “It needs to be explained but it should be in there. Edward Ahenakew collected it for a reason. He understood Cree thinking. He spoke Cree fluently and he had a good sense of humour.” (Cuthand in Ahenakew and Buck (Eds.) 1995, xii)

In the production of language materials, to censor traditional humour especially from the ears of children, would be to censor a long developed art form, kept, revised, and updated over generations. In this author's opinion, Anishnaabe humour in its complete, unaltered brilliance, is a great ancestral gift. To respect it properly, we might do well to see that it is celebrated - passed to future generations unaltered, save for where speakers or writers might wish to enhance and reinterpret it, while respecting its original intent, its eroticism and its power to shock.

The first of Wemisaakwaa's escapes is innovative: mii'idash ezhi-akwaadawebatood gitchi-wiigwaasing aapiji baagwepagadining. and so he climbed a great birch tree very much where it had leaves bezhig iidash aniibiish ogiiodaapinaan mii dash i'imaa gii-animinjimiid aniibishing one so also leaf he took it so then there he went away grabbing hold onto the leaf waasa dash gitchi-webaasin aniibish far and very much it carried (him)(on the wind) (the) leaf

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Thereupon he climbed a tall birch tree which was very thick with foliage. Now a single leaf he took; whereupon he went clinging to the leaf, and a long way off was the leaf wafted by the wind. (210|211)

The women discover that this is where Wemiisaakwaa has escaped them, so they cut down the tree in order to search it. Upon doing so, they say: mii oma apane gii-akawadawaad ginaabeminan so here it has been (he) disappeared our man

"It is up here where our husband disappeared." (210|211)

This is obviously humorous as the young women have both wholeheartedly agreed, without Wemisaakwaa, Clothed-In-Fur's agreement or opinion, that he is their husband. The scene carries a feeling of inversion where the women feel hurt but determined in their pursuit, unable (or unwilling) to understand why 'their man' would be fleeing them. In their minds Wemiisaakwaa is the unreasonable party doing them a harmful injustice while in his mind he never agreed to any contract of any kind with them. All he did was to innocently play with them for a day. After all he is only a boy and they are young as well so to be acting that serious about a marriage relationship that early adds an additional element of incomprehensibility to the women's behavior from Wemisaakwaa's perspective. This story is akin to a comedic thriller, a funny suspense story about obnoxious overzealous romantics.

The land in the story has a presence so pronounced as to qualify it as something like an active protagonist in narrative terms. As the reader or listener observes the repeated escapes-by-leaf, we realize that the world holds a great deal of possibility for

Wemisaakwaa, and we gain as a result a feeling of hopefulness that he might escape,

77 whereas before his escape seemed unlikely. This tension between likelihood of escape and sense of the inevitability of Wemisaakwaa's capture creates suspense, which is then tempered with intrigue as the listener is encouraged to guess at the possible ways he might escape next.

The next escape is by spruce leaf, and the third by poplar. The Americanist tradition of looking at Ojibwa Texts in the same light as the Old Greek and Roman epics gains some evidentiary gravitas here, as the three part repetition with climactic variation agrees with the universal pattern that shows up worldwide in old storytelling from all regions. In each of these cases the young women count the number of leaves on the tree and - absurdly knowing the total expected number - deduce that one leaf is missing and that must be how Wemiisakwaa again escaped, carried on the wind.

After the three escapes Wemisaakwaa begins to tire, and upon seeing a ball (we are left to imagine what kind of ball) he resolves to hide himself inside of it: ogii-biimoodaan i'iw bigwaakwad odasawaan mii dash imaa giibiinjised he shot it this ball an arrow with an iron point so then there he entered it

He shot at the ball with his arrow, whereupon he then flew into it. (212|213)

Now the intrigue has resolved again as a new innovation occurs – becoming, through the force of will or mamaandaawiziwin, the arrow for long enough to enter into, or become the ball. The women cut down the nearby birch tree and again count the leaves, this time realizing, again absurdly as there is no way they could know the expected number of leaves to begin with that none are missing! While counting they discover the ball and guess that he might be inside it. They begin to try to cut him out of the ball with an axe, not necessarily realizing they are cutting his body.

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Eventually the axe breaks and in desperation, dismay and desire, they begin to rub themselves on the ball until they bleed. It is not stated explicitly whether they are rubbing themselves on the ball in a sexual way or in a desperately affectionate way, though within the context of similar stories it is probably meant to be sexual, and like a lot of sexual humour the suggestion is left open so as to implicate the listener in having made the association on her or his own. The other interpretation, just a fawning sort of platonic rubbing, like one might do with a specially treasured (or futilely resisting) pet, is also funny, though not quite in the same way. Again, it is possible that the language used leaves room for both interpretations. In the first case, something of the humour would be lost in translation to English. Within the comparably permissible healthy sexuality of Anishnaabe storytelling, this episode twist would be meant to be and is very funny. When translated into English it acquires a kind of flatness and the reader almost has to re-imagine the original sentiment which he or she may know from experience with Anishnaabemowin back into the story at which point it becomes desperately funny again. In any case this point in the story represents a nexus of thought-way clash between differing aesthetics of humour - some reading this in English will fail to get the joke, where within the language and aesthetics of Anishnaabemowin, the joke resolutely retains its integrity, understandability and completeness.

At this point concludes only the first part of what is really the epic journey of

Wemisaakwaa. From here the story continues on to several more episodes. In this episode we encountered the establishment of a four part pattern through the tree escapes, with the variation being the ball transformation in the fourth repetition. We

79 saw the land come alive as a place where miraculous occurrences could come about through cooperation with the trees and with the objects of one’s own possession (in this case the arrow). We saw the development of a comedy of universal appeal with a climax comprised of a kind of sexual or at least desperately amorous nature, and we saw the use and illustration of traditional Anishnaabe family roles in the relationship of

Wemisaakwaa and the woman who he came to know as grandmother. Overall the story's tension comes from the pursuit, the differing perspectives of the pursuers and the pursued, the impossibility of the escapes, the suspense of the leaf counting, and the desperation of the final moment.

To satisfy the reader, this episode ends with the women finally giving up the chase, convinced that the ball is not their man whom they have lost. Wemisaakwaa, once he feels confident they are gone, comes out of the ball-state, bleeding and injured, but very much alive. He walks then down to a nearby lake and washes off his fur jacket, at which point the listener or reader feels that the episode has concluded and the next is ready to begin.

2.7 Killing One’s Brother: Reciprocal Relation in Episode III of Gaagigebinesi’s ‘Wemisaakwaa, Clothed-in-Fur’

The following passage explains the ancestral practice of careful treatment of animals, providing an illustrative story of how the process works in practice. In this story Wemisaakwaa fights the conflicting desire to both eat the Muskrat, and respect her as a relative, his sister-in-law. The need to kill animals, close relations to human beings, represents a foundational tension original to much Anishnaabe storytelling.

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Wemisaakwaa's sister-in-law, provided that none of the joints in her body are damaged, comes alive again after her bones are given back to the water. It is understood that her body appears again around those bones. This lies at the centre of Anishnaabe and Cree historical kinship understanding - the animals will return to the hunter continually if he speaks well of them, causes them the least pain possible in their killing, and treats them

59 well after they have been killed. Most accurately if the hunter develops a friendship or a bond of familial love with the animal, the animal will give its body repeatedly to the hunter to be used as food. The well-being of the animal and the human come together, as one comes to consider the other a part of its family. wazhask gaye imaa namadabi ishkwandeng muskrat also there she sits in the doorway

Muskrat as seated in the doorway. (234|235)

ingoding adash inendam wemisaakwaa apegish amwag odinendimaan wiinimaan 60 once then he thinks clothed-in-fur perhaps I might eat her he thinks his sister-in-law

59 This is corroborated in Jennifer Brown and Robert Brightman: The Orders of the Dreamed: George Nelson on Cree and Northern Ojibwe Religion and Myth (1990), in the Dene context by Richard Nelson: Make Prayers to the Raven (1980), and in Maude Kegg - Naawakamigookwe - Centered upon the Ground Woman, Memories of an Ojibwe Childhood (1991).

60 Gender is not encoded in verbs as one might guess by the translation 'he thinks'. This translation comes from already having established that the subject is male from a previous sentence. Declension is encoded in Anishnaabemowin verbs and nouns, as a way of shortcutting references much in the same way as English pronouns. The third person in Anishnaabemowin is as in English, but there is an additional fourth person - the third person is foregrounded, while the fourth person is slightly in the background. This is much like rack focus in cinematography, where one person in the frame may be in focus, where another depending on the depth of field may be blurry. Analogously, the third person may be considered to be the person in the frame in focus, while the person who is slightly blurry may be considered to be fourth person. The encoding of verbs and nouns in this way allows that the subject and objects of previous sentences may be referred to without restating their identity in entirety. It is a means of optimizing and economizing speech. For example zhizhibag oganoonaawaan waawashkeshiwan, means the ducks (third person plural indicated by the ending -ag) speak to the deer (fourth person plural indicated by the ending -an) where the transitive verb 'oganoonaawaan’ means 'third person animate plural speaks to fourth person animate plural'. This kind of encoding lets the listener know that the primary subject of the sentence are the ducks while the deer are slightly less emphasized. The third and fourth person references can also switch allowing for the speaker to determine a new focus subject. Again declension of this kind allows for a reference to the 3rd or 4th person built into the verb and the genderless pronoun without having to repeatedly name them once they have been initially named identified.

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So once thought Clothed-in-Fur: "I wish that I might eat her!" Such was the thought he had of his sister-in-law. (234|235)

baabige dash giigido wazhask right away then she speaks muskrat

At once up spoke Muskrat: (234|235)

naske enendang wemiisaakwaa apegish amwag niinim inendam look he may think clothed-in-fur possibly I might eat my sister-in-law he thinks

"See what clothed-in-fur has in mind! 'Would that I eat my sister-in-law! he thinks." (234|235)

In this passage it is revealed that at first it seems out of place, the idea that one could kill a relative. gii-agaji dash a'aw inini mii dash ekidod a'aw akiwenzi he was ashamed but this man so then he said this old man aanish maanoo odaiyamwaan in what way let it be that he might eat her

Whereupon said the old man: "Well, let him go ahead and eat her!" (234|235)

The old man knows that the Muskrat will regain her life after she has had enough time to reconstitute her body, provided that they proceed in the proper manner. For this reason he carefully supervises the killing and further treatment of Muskrat. mii dash giinisaawaad iniw ikwewan ogiigiijizwaawaan so then they kill her that woman they cooked her

Thereupon, after they slew that woman, they cooked her. And so he was fed. (234|235)

mii dash gii-ashamind gego ingoji gidiskamaaken so then he was fed don’t anywhere break the joints

And so he was fed. "Don't break the joint's at any place!" (234|235)

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If the joints are not broken, the bones stay together, making it easier for the musculature of the animal to reestablish itself around the skeleton. For the same reason bones are not given to dogs, so that the skeletons may be reused by the same animals that were kind enough to give themselves over for a time to be eaten by human beings. gaa-ishkwaa-wisinid idash gii-odabinigaadewan okanan nibiikaang after he had eaten then they were gathered up the bones to the water iidash gii-awibagijigaadewan okanan and they were thrown the bones

After he had eaten the bones were gathered up; to the water then were the bones taken and thrown in. (234|235)

The bones are thrown into the water, where the Muskrat lives, so that she may come alive again.

naagaj idash gii-bibindige a'aw ikwe miinawa gii-bimaadizi later then she entered this woman and she lived

And after awhile in came the woman again; she was alive. (234|235) mii go ingiw moozhag gaa-doodawind w'aw inini giishpin and so those always what was done to him this man if misawenimaad wii-amwaad he desired wanted to eat them

And that was always what was done to the man whenever he had the desire to eat them; (234|235)

naaningoding ogoziisan naniingoding gaye wiidaan ogii-amwan sometimes his mother-in-law sometimes also his brother-in-law he ate

...sometimes it was his mother-in-law, and sometimes it was his brother-in-law he ate. (234|235)

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That the animals are referred to as 'mother-in-law' or 'brother-in-law', confers that they are relations and that to kill them is not easy. It is in other words a difficult experience for the hunter to carry out repeatedly. Knowing that the animals come on purpose to hunters that they favor, pitying them and giving themselves up to be killed makes hunting bearable while allowing that the hunter not lose sight of the fact that animals are kin. Consider: gakina dash gii-bagidinimaagewag wii-awiwaan ji-nisindwaa all also gave themselves they wanted to lend themselves in order that they be killed

And all gave themselves up to be killed. (236|237)

In addition, it is again affirmed that the animals come back alive: wenaagozhig idash miinawaa gakina gii-dagoshinoog bimaadisiwaad in the evening then also all they arrived while they are living

And in the evening they all returned alive. (236|237)

An animal might go through many rebirths in the course of a lifetime. We might guess that some may be very old when understood in this way. These may be the original animals present at the time of creation, brought to life originally of their own will, or through the breath of Nenaboozho, or through some other means. Thinking upon this further, we may also understand ourselves as eternal, though in neither case, animal or human, is it necessary that the successive regenerations always take the same form. In one generation a soul may be disparate, spread across the earth or space. It may be entwined in a storm, riverway or a stretch of mountains. It may have no individual identity in one generation, being instead part of the whole, while in the next it may coalesce and find expression in a more easily identifiable form, such as a human being

84 or an animal. In some cases however - and this is the essence of many hunter-animal friendships - the same animal regenerates over and over.

A hunter witnesses the death trauma of animals, and this creates sadness, especially as hunters tend to feel a natural kinship for the animals they pursue. These animals inhabit the same landscape and become familiar to the hunters. This passage acknowledges that hunters feel a familial kinship with animals, making the idea of killing them unsettling. Having to survive forces this killing and would disrupt the kinship, if it were not for the understanding that the animals would come to live again. In addition there remains the possibility that the animals jiichag and jiibom, the soul and shadow, travel for a time unhindered by a wiiyo, a body, before experiencing rebirth.

2.8 Lifelong Great Friendship in Gaagigebinesi’s ‘The Boy That Was Carried Away By A Bear’

In the story of the Ojibwa Texts (1919) ‘The Boy That Was Carried Away By A

Bear’ (271-278) told by Gaagigebinesi, a boy makes friends with a bear. When the boy first meets the bear, he forgets his former life:

61 megwaa biibaagid mii go iw gii-wanenimaad oosan ogiin(ge) gaye while calling out so very much this one he forgot his father his mother also

62 mii go (nind)awaaja meshkod gii-zaagiaad iniw makwan so very much instead he that exchanged he loved that bear obishawaninigon

61 'go' and 'sa' are both emphasis or emphatic communicators in Anishnaabemowin. These are often scripted as 'emph.', though an exclamation point or italics may also bring across the same intent.

62 Historically, and less so in the present, 'zaagi'aa', 'he or she is fond of or loves him or her' had an element of stinginess or possessiveness sometimes implying excess. Currently, the meaning resembles more closely the English meanings of 'love', whether it be love of family, community and romance.

85 he was pitied by

While calling aloud, he thereupon lost the memory of his father and his mother; accordingly, then, instead, he became fond of that bear that had come to take pity on him. (270|271)

This forgetfulness follows patterns of transformation that sometimes occur when human beings go to live with animals. In some cases they unknowingly take on the outward appearance of that animal. In other cases they may be knowledgeable of who they are living with, while remaining human.63 Eventually the bear explains to the boy why he acts as he does: naningodinoo a'aw makwa ikido aanawi niijawenimaag Anishnaabeg sometimes this bear says although I take pity on them the people gaawiin dash nimiinaasiig niiiyaa ozaam gidaapanaadji'in giishpin nisigoyan no then I might not give them my body too much I might harm them if I am killed

Sometimes the Bear would say: "Even though I take pity upon people, yet I do not (always) give them of my body. Too much harm would I do you if I should be killed. (274|275)

This reinforces the idea that animals willfully give of themselves, when they encounter human beings that are respectful. This excerpt additionally shows that while an animal is respected and treated properly, it may in some circumstances decide not to give itself to the people. 64 The reason given here is that the bear fears it may not be able to

63 In The Dog's Children told by Angeline Williams, the protagonist lives with dogs while remaining human and fully aware of the circumstance. (Transcription by Leonard Bloomfield and John Nichols)

64 Oftentimes animal names are respectful distancing references. English has this though it is forgotten; for example 'bear' was a respectful distancing word. The Online Etymology Dictionary gives us: Greek arktos and Latin ursus retain the ...root word for "bear" (*rtko), but it is believed to have been ritually replaced in the northern branches because of hunters' taboo on names of wild animals (the Irish equivalent "the good calf," Welsh "honey-pig," Lithuanian "the licker," Russian medieval "honey-eater"). (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=bear, retrieved 12/11/2011) Richard Nelson's Make Prayers for the Raven corroborates this as the Athabascan reference for bear was 'heavy walker'. Dené community members told Nelson that this word was used so as to grant the bear a respectful

86 control its own actions to protect itself against the hunter, and may unwillingly cause the hunter injury. In other words, if a hunter is not finding animals, it may not be his own fault for somehow disrespecting the animals. It may have to do instead with the current state of mind of the animal. That animal's desire to do what is best for the human beings will sometimes translate into waiting for another day to offer assistance.

At one point during their travels together, the bear demonstrates that it has a way of seeing or gathering knowledge that is both unique and powerful: a'aw (m)ii dash makwa gii-animikoodaa gii-nandakikendang minik Anishnaaben This so then bear turned face down searching for in thought how many people ge-dishaanid ji-bibong may arrive during the winter

So the bear rolled over upon his face and belly, in order to find out in his mind how many people would be passing by during the winter. (272|273)

Bears then may possess gifts of method or insight in ways that are similar to the faculties of medicine people. Many people look to bears for medicine contemporarily.

That bears themselves practice a kind of medicine particular to their experience adds depth to the possibility in the story, meanwhile contributing texture to the story’s depth. The bear comes alive through a description of its compassion for the boy and through an illustration of its special nature and abilities. The land in these stories comes alive also, and plays a vibrant role in shaping the narratives. Like an ever-present protagonist, the land drives the action of the stories forward. The compounded sentience, will, and power carried by the agencies and elements of the land, grant the

distance. Makwa (south western) or Mkwa (eastern) in Ojibwe and some of the other animal names may imply respectful distancing as well.

87 stories a setting that itself has both a will and a presence. With it, the stories become distinct and resolutely memorable.

The boy's friendship with the bear becomes strong, and when it is time for the two to separate, and the boy to return to the human beings, the bear in view of the village where the boy is to return conceals himself behind a tree and tells the boy: giishpin ingoding bakadeyan ganoojishin gii-gidashamin if sometime you may be hungry call me I will feed you

"If at any time you are in need of food, then do you call upon me. I will feed you." (276|277)

In the same way that the boy lost his memory of his parents when he joined the bear, he likewise forgets the bear now: apii (m)ii dash a'aw gwiiwisens gwekaatig gaa-izhaad mii at the time so then this boy around the tree he went so iw gii-wanenimaad omishoomisan. this one he forgot his grandfather

And when the boy went forth from behind the tree, then lost he all thought of his grandfather. (276|277)

The kinship between the boy and the bear we come to understand as something approximating that which exists between a grandfather and a grandson. This is a common relation understood in ceremony contemporarily. It is often understood that many of the animals seem somehow older than people, maybe because they continue to live the way they have, while human beings have changed so much in so short a time.

In this case the bear is simply an elder to the boy.

The one thing that the boy does remember is the last thing the bear told him.

The boy's grandmother once heard the boy say:

88 nimishoomis niwii-wisin ashamishin my grandfather I wish to eat feed me wiiba dash igo bigiigidoo a'aw gwiwizens soon then very much came towards speaking this boy inashke gosha makwa imaa bimaadage look don't you know? bear there he is swimming

"My Grandfather I wish to eat, do feed me!" And in a little while thither came the boy, saying: Oh look! yonder swims a bear. (278|279)

In other words, honoring what he had told the boy when they separated, the bear listens for the boy and comes to him when he is in need. The bear then makes it easy for the boy to kill him: apii 'idash besho eni-ayaawaad makwan bimaadagenid when then close by in the course of time they were there the bear as he was swimming along eshkam eni-bezikaa a'aw makwa bimaadaged gradually it slowed this bear as it swam along dabashish eskam inikweni beneath gradually he lowers his head

Apii 'idash eni-odisaawaad iniw makwan a'aw gwiiwisens ogii-odaapinaan when then they neared it that bear this boy he picked up obagamaagaans his little war-club mii dash gii-bakiteowaad aabiding mii go gii-niboonid so then they hit him once so very much he was dead

And when they got near to where the bear was swimming, slower then went the bear as he swam along; lower he bowed his head... And then when they drew up to the bear, the boy picked up his tiny war-club, whereupon he struck him but once, and then (the bear) was dead. (278|279)

There is a certain special sadness drawn out by this story. It comes from the listener understanding and seeing what the boy cannot - that he cannot remember save for a shadowy fragment, his friendship with the bear, even though it still exists. The two worlds, that of the bears and of the human beings, are inherently separated as thought

89 and memory cannot freely cross between the two. That the bear would suffer for the boy repeatedly, even though the boy can hardly remember the bear, is both strange and sad, especially when considering that the gifts given to the bear by the boy were not material, but consisted of sharing time and experience - that is, the bear suffers death again and again for the boy because of the memory of their friendship.

Offerings and gifts given to animals or aspects or manidoog are often misunderstood as bribes, tithe, levy, sacrifice to appease anger, or some other like payments. Rather, they are the celebration of already existing friendships between people and animals, manidoog, or some other aspect of the mystery. Most often these friendships are won in dreams, or during conversations had with animals out on the land. Other times they may be the result of fasting, while other times still they may be the result of as in this story, having spent time with that animal or manido.

This story tells the listener that the dividing lines between animals and people may exist, yet they are in some ways arbitrary, because people are not very different than bears. This story reaffirms that the need to kill animals in order to survive is the great fundamental sadness of life, as killing an animal is killing one’s relative. This story tells us that this great tragic condition of existence is easier to understand and accept when taking into account the care and respect animals and people have for one another.

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2.9 Anishnaabe Poetics in Ojibwa Texts

Ojibwa Texts deals heavily with animals, and with the interaction between those animals. Metaphor and what is likely dream-influenced symbolism, settings and occurrences pervade the stories. These narratives do not have concrete morals like fables, neither do they always tie up neatly or express total internal coherence as do many classical stories from other traditions, though narrative coherence does exist when looking at the stories thematically considering a great breadth of text. These aspects of traditional Anishnaabe narrative appear commonly enough to suggest that they are intentional, and reflect the sensibilities of the audience at the time. The stories overlap and intersect somewhat unpredictably, making it clear that they do not exist in absolute concrete formality but rather as a part of an ever growing and changing cycle of stories that all involve a common interest in certain beings such as the great hare of the island who eats the brains of all of the lost travelers who go there.

Poetics as a word refers the set of ideas that characterize or are used to understand a kind of poetry. The word can be used very broadly to refer to patterns of aesthetics and abstraction, or more pointedly to refer to linguistic structure such as rhythm, meter, and syntax. Abstraction and aesthetics appear as preference for certain kinds of motif, metaphor, and themes. Altogether poetics becomes almost synonymous with perspective, where both visible structures of language, and more ephemeral, amorphous patterns of ideas influence perspective.

Poetics may be local to a people, or they may be specific to an individual. An individual's style or a community of narrative artists' style, be they writers, visual artists,

91 or people whose way of life is 'art', is a collection of aesthetics that include the abstract and the technical. In this conversation, the community of narrative artists of interest are Anishnaabeg traditional storytellers from around Lake Superior, who spoke around the turn of the century. The poetics of these stories come from personal style, unique to each orator, from the aesthetics of the community of storytellers particular to certain areas, and then from the broader preferences of the South-western contingent of the

Anishnaabe Nation. In all of this the use of English and the tools of the create a false sense of objectivity. In looking at perception ways, there can be no universal center, and no Rosetta Stone of theoretical approach. The best attempt that can be made is itself abstracted, hoping to respect the original intent of the storytellers.

That is to understand the stories on their own terms, without critiquing them according to some external, overt or subconscious set of standards.

The poetics of Ojibwa Texts do not easily conform to a set of easily definable rules. As reflections of the human soul, poetics do not always conform to a fixed set of rules, though studies in theory often give the impression of encapsulation, summary and overall comprehension. At best, western theory has approached Indigenous literatures with the understanding that these may be measured in accordance with a universal set of standards that applies to all literature, classifying Indigenous literature as 'high literature' if such qualifications are attained. This is still, no matter how inclusive, a judgment framework that places Indigenous literatures inside a western court of criticism, while that metaphorical court somehow perceives itself as neutral and objective, even non-extant. The question of whether Indigenous literatures are high

92 literature tends to distract. It may be more meaningful to ask what these literatures do for the people.

Through Anishnaabe narrative understandings of kinship, of the kind found in

Ojibwa Texts, importance extends to all creation, as individuals speak to their relations across all manners of existence. Much of the forethought that goes into using English language to express Cree and Anishnaabe ideas has to do with translating this concept.

Individual speakers often go to great lengths to present their words in such a way as to communicate an awareness of kinship, and that none of the words spoken are meant to reflect the thoughts of the community as a whole. This is a very subtle and delicate balance to maintain, because if a speaker is well versed in this way of speaking, the likelihood that s/he will represent the thoughts of the group increases with the attention given to the observation that they can only speak from their own personal experience. As awareness of one’s own relation in the community and in creation increases so does the likelihood that an individual will be heard. This is because in general, modesty, levity and honesty are direct reflections of respect for kinship, and anything that could be interpreted as self-promotion opposes kinship. It is often noted how politeness and supportive interrelation pervades the way in which many elders treat each other, and rather than reducing this to custom, it would be more accurate to understand it as an expression of relation.

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2.10 Ojibwa Texts Conclusions

The Ojibwa Texts resonate well with the idea of re-establishing poetry in thoughtscapes where it has at times been driven out. They do this by establishing that the living world is omnipresent in all of the narratives. The world is alive in these texts and its presence is felt throughout. That is one aspect of the poetics of the Ojibwa

Texts, an affirmation of the universality of kinship, and the mamaandaawiziwin that relationality moves within.

Another aspect of the poetry of Ojibwa Texts comes from subtlety. These stories do not read like poetry in the formal English sense. They have no rhyme and no fixed meter. They make no claim to deliver first-hand knowledge of absolutist creation as some have taken them to mean. They are entertaining, funny, disorienting and immersed in poetics; made from it even – a poetics that is ever-present yet difficult to prove the existence of using just the common tools of literary criticism. The poetics of the Ojibwa Texts seamlessly combines layered symbolism and broad reaching ideas with comedy. When the reader first begins to gain a sense of foothold, the narrative fabric breaks apart and seditiously eludes, offends and confuses - challenging one’s sense of mastery over understanding. There are no fable-style morals, no evangelizing and no singular assertion of values. In the stories there exist primarily aesthetic impressions, thought games, conceptual knot-work and again the arrhythmic establishment and concurrent de-evolution of patterns. These are all intended as a part of a traditional education that cultivates an individuals' character as one that is adaptable, flexible, self-

94 sufficient, cooperative, dynamic, celebratory, resourceful, community-oriented, versatile, able, impervious to control, critical, independent, and light hearted.

One of the ironies related to talking about poetics in the context of Cree literatures has to do with the general sense within those literatures that attempting categorical definitions and classifications of a thing is tantamount to stifling or suffocating that thing, metaphorically speaking. This is the classical problem of the transformational beings, that the more the critic wishes to define the being, the further away from a sense of accuracy he or she may stray. The transformational beings at times seem ‘good’ with the care and stewardship of humanity in their best interest. At other times the transformational beings seem to arbitrarily or even gleefully kill at random. The purpose of many Anishnaabemowin stories then according to this may well be to condition the mind for functionality and stability within shifting psychological- social spaces where security and predictability remain elusive. By the same token assuming stability and predictability with a set of narrative modes would misrepresent

Anishnaabemowin conceptual practice if taken too far. With that in mind we will attempt to talk about Cree and Anishnaabe poetics without imposing too rigid a set of structures, definitions, or classifications around them. In truth, the dynamism of the literatures is so great as to make these literatures immune to rigid classification and categorizations in their very nature. No attempts to rigidly confine the literatures have heretofore succeeded, or will ever likely succeed; neither have such attempts stood up to community peer review. The poetics of these literatures are too strong and too

95 subtle to be easily captured or cemented into a concrete form, much less classified in any absolute or conclusive way.

The intention for talking about poetics initially comes from an appreciation of the stories and the ideas resident in the narratives themselves. This celebration more so comes from the feeling of sharing in the poetic expression of these literatures by individual orators, whether experienced through text or in person. These stories have the potential to make people think, feel, and laugh, meaning that they have the power to create positive experience and as such act, like all good narrative artistry, as medicines for the body, mind and soul.

In summary, a close reading of just a few of the Ojibwa Texts leads to the understanding of a perceptive poetic reframing – that all creation has intrinsic power and life. In this way, no aspect of existence exists devoid of innate vibrance, and so rich is creation as to remain unknowable in the absolute, at least whereas regards the limitations of human awareness. Through ancestral Cree and Anishnaabe narrative knowing and poetic awareness, human beings emerge as equal participants in existence.

They stand not at all apart from any aspect of being but are instead one of many like beings, each expressing its own complementary perspective, strength and unique importance - combining as threads in the greater fabric of all and everything.

2.11 The Future Possibilities of Ojibwa Texts

William Jones’ texts have great potential in being adapted for use in schools, though one does encounter some conscriptions to the excess telling of stories in the

96 summer time. This is to allow especially young people the freedom to move about and experience a more physical life during the long days of summer while the primary purpose of stories is to fill the long dark of winter. That life is to be experienced physically is a major component of traditional Anishnaabe Cree thought and in terms of generating Nation-specific curriculum for youth and adult education, the yearly round provides a readily accessible map for living in partnership with seasonal changes.

Conveniently, the school year, though having evolved to provide some time for spring and summer planting, allows that most textual experience and sedentary learning would occur in the colder months. That one-from-nothing stories should generally be experienced in the winter fits western models of formal education closely.

Recently, Anishnaabe scholar Anton Treuer has been working with the Ojibwa Texts, transferring them into the double vowel orthography and reprinting them for wider access in the Oshkabewis Native Journal through Bemidji State University. In relation to this, Treuer points out that the language, in its ability to both challenge and provide insight, results in a higher propensity for students to come away with improved skills in all areas regarding language, Anishnaabemwin centered or otherwise. In the following

Waadookodaading refers to the immersion school Treuer has worked at:

While fluency remains our preeminent goal, literacy can help get us there, and the immersion schools are proving that. There are now Ojibwe language immersion schools across Ojibwe country in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ontario. Some have been going for ten years or more. Waadookodaading has, in addition to its Ojibwe language accomplishments, a 100% pass rate on state-mandated tests in English, administered in English ten years in a row. (Treuer in Treuer (Etd.) 2011, 9-10)

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In language programs such as those to which Anton Treuer refers, the Ojibwe Texts are already being used to help bring about skill in Anishnaabemowin. What is less expected is that immersion programs such as these, with the help of the ideas and thought systems resident in the older stories, result in students’ mental agility increasing in all areas.

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3 Classical and Ancestral Narrative Knowing in Plains Cree Texts

3.1 What Plains Cree Texts Means to Cree Narrative Study

Looking at the fabric of themes texturing nêhiyawêwin âtayôhkêwina, or Cree language traditional stories in The Plains Cree Texts (1934) aligns Louise Halfe’s writing with conceptions of contemporary maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina, or narrative medicine.

What makes the Plains Cree Texts special, much like the Ojibwa Texts is that there are few bilingual Cree-English texts in existence from before 1960 or so, especially those having to do with traditional stories. Biblical materials existed but these were translated from English into Cree as opposed to the other way around. Freda Ahenakew in Cree

Language Structures: A Cree Approach (1986) explains: "The only Plains Cree books with consistent spelling that were not translated into Cree are the Plains Cree texts65 from

Saskatchewan which Leonard Bloomfield collected in 1925." (2) Working as editor, Freda

Ahenakew pursued publication of a series of texts after about 1960 under the auspices of the Algonquian Text Society in part to complement what Leonard Bloomfield's texts presented to the language learner. The Plains Cree Texts (1934) would no longer stand alone, but would be stronger when accompanied by a broad diversity of texts focusing on conversation and practical use of the language.

Archaically referred to as ‘informants’ by Bloomfield, these texts were created by those we might more accurately call narrator-authors. These are: nâhnamiskwêkâpaw –

He Is Standing Bowing His Head - Louis Moosimin, sâkêwêw – He Is Coming Into View -

65 Freda uses ‘Plains Cree Texts’ here in the generic not to refer only to Plains Cree Texts (1934) alone but to include all of the stories collected at Sweet Grass, which included Sacred Stories of the Sweet Grass Cree. (1930)

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Adam Sakewew; Alt. (He) Comes Into View sîsîkwâyôw – It Is Hailing, kâ-kîsikaw pîhtokêw – Coming Day; Alt. He Who Is Day Entering, nakwêsis - Mrs. Coming Day, mimikwâs – Butterfly - Simon Mimikwas, and kâ-wîhkaskosahk – She Who Is Burning It

So As To Smudge - Maggie Achenam.

The importance of Plains Cree Texts has to do with their value in illustrating Cree poetic perspectives. These narratives are likewise important in terms of how they inform Cree neoclassical language-related thought today.66 In addition, these texts snapshot a narrative tradition that has contributed to the creation of contemporary poetic texts in English that involve Cree language - those authored by Louise Halfe, such as The Crooked Good (2007), and those by Gregory Scofield, such as kipocihkân (2009) among others. Alongside the writing of newer poets working with the language, these make for what is now a richly growing body of nêhiyawêwin influenced creative work.67

The Plains Cree Texts encourage the enhancement of neoclassical ancestral understandings of experience, language skills in conversation and writing skills, in both roman orthography and syllabics, all contributing insight into Creeness, or nêhiyâwiwin.

66 ‘Neoclassical’ and ‘Ancestral’ are used somewhat interchangeably. ‘Neoclassical’ refers to a continuation of ancestral thought in contemporary contexts where continued reinvigoration, reinterpretation and revitalization are the rule. ‘Ancestral’ is also used in this way though with the allowance that we may be talking about ancestral ideas in the past, present or both depending on context. Neoclassical refers just to ancestral ideas that retain or are given life in the present.

67 These authors have all begun to have a conversation about the power of nêhiyawêwin. Newer works clearly indicate a trend towards emphasizing and including Cree language. Some works such as Gregory Scofield’s Kipocihkân (2009) include glossaries at the end of poems to help the reader while others move towards a more reader- responsible stance where the reader is challenged to do their own language learning in order to translate or decode a particular piece.

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Finally, Cree narrative memory, narrative imagination, and kinship, represent just a few of the modes of narrative knowing that inform nêhiyâwiwin in the Plains Cree Texts.68

The Plains Cree Texts (1934), much like the Ojibwa Texts (1917, 1919) represent not isolated stories, but changing episodic cycles, in agreement with Christopher

Vecsey’s assertion of episodic story cycle patterning in Imagine Ourselves Richly… (1988) and Traditional Ojibwa Religion and Its Historical Changes (1983). Often they define intertwined overlapping plots and timelines, describing occurrences that in seeming paradox nonetheless provide the foundations for their own coming into being. As they are representations of the contradictions inherent to existence, the blend and overlap of these narratives do not cause discord, but resonance within the sensibilities of nêhiyawêwin or Anishnaabemowin. A conversation continues to develop surrounding how to best approach indigenous literatures without relying too heavily on western method. Anishnaabe author Gerald Vizenor relates:

But what I am trying to do is develop ideas in literary criticism that are different from American or Western literary critical history. I want to find some interpretive and critical things to say about Native American fiction particularly, that is uniquely interpretive of Native American fiction and not just some Western literary interpretation… and those ideas focus on silence, transformation, episodic stories that have multiple topics with a kind of center but no closure. (Vizenor in Mythic Rage and Laughter, an interview with Dallas Miller 1993, 78)

Similarly, in the Ojibwa Texts the world exists now in one version, due to the mud gathered by the muskrat during a great flood. This has been taken as the modern creation story of the Anishnaabe, reinforced in part by Basil Johnston’s Ojibway Heritage

68 ‘Knowing’ is used here to convey a sense of action, indicating that events ever occur in the now – that ancestral knowledge is not and has never been static or fixed, but is and always has been ever changing.

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(1976), and Edie Benton-Benai’s The Mishomis Book (1979). Both educators have advocated the use of traditional stories in guiding Anishnaabe education. Edie Benton-

Benai for example “believ(es) that education should be built on one’s heritage and cultural identity, and should encourage spirituality, creativity, and cultural pride.”

(Three Fires Midewiwin Lodge, 2013) The large intertwined story creates space for the people to continue their own narrative practices, as in the Ojibwa Texts creation is multifaceted, varied and intentionally left at times as contradictory. In addition, the flood was not the beginning but can be traced to earlier events.69 In Voices of the Plains

Cree (1973) an English -only text assembled from the 1920’s note of Edward Ahenakew,

Ahenakew begins ‘The First Man’ as follows:

"This is of great moment," my father said, and it was from him that I learned the story of Pointed Arrow, that has been told by our Old Men since ancient times. Pointed Arrow was the earliest man, and it was he who gave to us the legends of the time when man was trying to prevail over the animals and could speak with them. Earth had been destroyed, and it was after that time that Pointed Arrow lived. (Ahenakew 1973 in Ahenakew and Buck (Eds.) 1995, 45)

The last line points to the existence of other ages of reality. Accordingly, a fixed singular creation does not come out of the old texts, either Cree or Anishnaabe but a much more vibrant and diverse set of coexisting creations appear.

Though distinct, Anishnaabe and Cree people, in terms of history, literature and language share narrative ideas along with a greater family of nations. Particularly, in the

69 One of the primary faults of western multicultural tolerance is that is presupposes now not a Eurocentric center- point but now a Global universal center-point which in the same way as colonialism, second-classes all other perspectives. The global multicultural tolerance is far preferable to the Eurocentric viewpoint, and yet the bird’s eye view of all cultures still preferences an institutional power structure, an axial judge, by default. The new power structure which is mirrored in the United Nations accepts the viewpoints of all people while as of yet has only in brief instances been able to identify the strengths of specific Indigenous perspectives. Only when true power sharing occurs will the possibility of genuine conversation between parties occur.

102 case of the Cree and Anishinaabeg, the existence of Oji-Cree language and people points to the intersection of both peoples. Individual and local conversations have begun already, outlining signatures of nation-specific literature and literary theory such as

Craig Womack’s Red on Red: Native American Literary Separatism (1999) that begins to look at Creek literature from Creek perspective:

In terms of Native literature, I relate this to a more radical “Red Stick” approach – the assumption that Indian viewpoints cohere, that Indian resistance can be successful, that Native critical centers are possible, that working from within the nation, rather than looking toward the outside, is a legitimate way of examining literature. (Womack 1999, 12)

Even broader cross-community literary criticism has begun with works such as

(Ad)dressing Our Words: Aboriginal Perspectives on Aboriginal Literatures (2001) and

Reasoning Together: The Native Critics Collective (2008) and Across Cultures, Across

Borders: Canadian Aboriginal and Native American Literatures (2010) among others.

This simultaneous inclusivity and exclusivity in literary criticism would seem at first to be contradictory. But, in the spirit of Cree and Anishnaabemowin literatures this harmonious contradiction stands. Saulteaux people for example find special inspiration and influence from Cree people as do Cree people find inspiration and special influence in Saulteaux people. This illuminates a far more fluid map of national identity than governmental or anthropological models have tended to indicate. That is no surprise as divisive philosophy rests at the heart of policies recommending the establishment of

103 separate governments on reserves and reservations,70 something political reformers such as John Tootoosis have sought to remedy.71

Narrative memory of the kind described by Neal McLeod in Cree Narrative

Memory (2007) and narrative imagination constitute new-old fusions and reorientations of knowledge - stewarded ancestral thought patterns – not so much recreations or emulations of those patterns, but reformulations of those older patterns as sets of ever- growing improvisational practices. These innovative, sometimes experimental narrative knowledge genres derive from a conscious, respectful recognition of older ancestral narrative forms including the kind found in Plains Cree Texts. The development of new kinds of knowledge represents a continuation of the innovation resident to classical narrative genres.

Cree âtayôhkan and Anishnaabe aadizookaan exist as standalone entities with their own will, intent and designs. The character of âtayôhkanak and aadizookaanag are touched on in ana kâ-pimwêwêhahk okakêskihkêmowina - The Counseling Speeches of

Jim Kâ-Nîpitêhtêw (kâ-nîpitêhtêw in Ahenakew and Wolfart (Eds.) 1998, 134). This narrative is rich in humour and has erotic elements, bringing up the question of whether sacrality means the same thing in English as is implied when mentioning âtayôhkanak.

Within the Cree language and Anishnaabemowin also, the distinction between the profane and sacred appears far less exaggerated than that which exists in English formal

70 The 1876 and later amendments in Canada, and the Indian Removal Act 1830 and related legislation in the among these.

71 Refer to the biography of John Tootoosis and the formation of the Union of Saskatchewan Indians formed in 1946, and the subsequent Federation of Saskatchewan Indians in 1959. Full reference: Sluman, Norma and Goodwill, Jean Cuthand. John Tootoosis : Biography of a Cree Leader. Ottawa: Golden Dog Press, 1982.

104 speech. Tomson Highway articulates this divide in “Why Cree is the Sexiest of All

Languages” (2008):

I will frequently explain up front that, even though I may be speaking in English at any given point of time, I am actually using that English as filtered through the mind of a person who is speaking in Cree. And, generally speaking given that English is my second, if not third, language, by a mile - I am mostly successful in doing this. If I am not, I will simply ask my audience to suspend their imaginations - and their moral sense, of which more in a second - for those few seconds when my little technique fails me (which I'm happy to report isn't that often, thank God). (Highway in Taylor 2008, 33-34)

In the following pages he sketches the shape of a narrative Cree-influenced fabric of experience that recognizes eroticism, humour, seriousness, and interrelatedness as all expressions of the same spectrum of everyday sacredness.

Erotic content is key to narrative medicine. Due to the colonial practice of suppressing outward expressions of the erotic, a great amount of sexual content in Cree and Anishnaabe written narrative has been censored, de-emphasized, and misrepresented. Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Anishnaabikwe from Neyaashiinigmiing,

Cape Croker and head of Kegedonce Press has published numerous Anishnaabe and other Original72 authors. Her recent editorial work includes Without Reservation:

Indigenous Erotica (2003). This work is the first of its kind to bring together Indigenous authors to reinvigorate erotica. The following appears in My Heart Is A Stray Bullet

(1993):

72 Replacing ‘aboriginal’ with ‘original’ in this work defies the misleading sound of the word ‘aboriginal’. Though ‘aboriginal’ technically means ‘the earliest inhabitants of a certain place’, it sounds to many not educated in Greek and Latin prefix formulation to mean ‘not original’. Furthermore it has to many on the community level the feeling of strained political correctness. Though in formal political processes it carries more legal weight than ‘Indian’, just saying ‘original’ as in the original people might be more poetic while also carrying more political weight.

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More and more I have longed for stories of love between our people. Not the stereotypes and fantasies of Hollywood, sexually bored middle- aged American housewives, nor those of men looking to affirm their virility and dominance. I wanted something true… I wanted them to be about love, not power. It was then I began to look for erotica by Indigenous authors. (Akiwenzie-Damm 1993, x)

Accepting the sexual stereotypes of colonialism as a kind of a bad medicine or poison,

Without Reservation acts as an antidote to this poison or a counteractive, indigenizing good medicine. In places where sexual repression has been the standing rule, such as in colonial North America, erotica invigorates personal and community independence and autonomy. In such cases, bringing sexuality back into focus has the potential to empower everyone involved, as does it resonate with themes and interests present in ancestral spoken literatures. From a political standpoint, if one can think freely with regards to sex, then free thinking in other contexts is more likely to become second nature. The writing of Will Roscoe and Walter Williams73 regarding ancestral acceptance of sexual diversity provides a backdrop to this conversation that brings the importance of two-spirited people to the communities into focus as well.

The Plains Cree Texts express a signature of themes, orienting approaches to newer Cree texts such as those of Louise Halfe. The older texts illuminate some of the ways in which Cree language acts poetically as do they illustrate some of the thematic currents present in Cree thought historically. The resurgence of thematic patterns reflects contemporary authors’ will to renew older narrative practices – to breath on the

73 See Walter L. Williams, The Spirit and The Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Cultures, , MA, Beacon Press, 1986; see also Will Roscoe, Changing One’s: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

106 embers that endured through the residential school era, and bring the fire back to its full height.

3.2 Plains Cree Texts

The Plains Cree Texts, unlike when Freda Ahenakew spoke of them in 1987 no longer stand alone as the most extensive body of consistent-spelling Cree language materials, making now a good time to revisit the texts and to consider them in terms of their re-contextualized value as aids to learning Cree language and narrative imagination practices. The Plains Cree Texts (1934) also have been overshadowed by their partner texts, Sacred Stories of the Sweet Grass Cree (1930), making a fresh look at them something that may fit well into current directions in Cree language learning. Linguist

Leonard Bloomfield collected Plains Cree Texts during the summer of 1925 as part of a trip for the National Museum of Canada, working in tandem with the Department of

Mines. Thirty six of these texts were printed initially as Bulletin Number 60 of the

National Museum, titled Sacred Stories of the Sweet Grass Cree as mentioned. Although they were printed four years later under that name, the Plains Cree Texts were collected at the same time, also from the Sweet Grass Reserve, Battleford Agency, Saskatchewan from the same orators. Bloomfield divides Plains Cree Texts into four sections: Life and

Worship, the Past, the Powers Around Us, and Sacred Stories. (Bloomfield 1930, v) The

Sacred Stories of the Sweet Grass Cree became more popular likely because of the primary focus on âtayôhkêwina, or the telling of ‘sacred stories’.

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Though ancestral âtayôhkêwina also appears in Plains Cree Texts, the focus on warfare with the Blackfoot, called kihci-âcimowina in Plains Cree Texts coupled with its spare title may have made it less attractive to wider audiences than Sacred Stories of the

Sweet Grass Cree. The warfare of Plains Cree Texts as contrasted to that of conventional state-sanctioned war would make for a revelatory study. This topic seems to call for continuous consideration and explanation contemporarily, and represents a key point of divergence between western and Cree approaches to relating to other nations. At the heart of this lies a controversial discussion over the definition and nature of an enemy.

It would by necessity include an understanding of the protocols surrounding the maintenance of a respectful relationship between nations concurrent with physical conflict occurring between those nations.

In Cree and Anishnaabe warfare, an enemy is one that will be fought, but also respected, honored, and supported. Additional differences between Cree and

Anishnaabe warfare and western conventional warfare abound. In ancestral considerations of warfare, fallen warriors of one nation will sometimes be answered by adoptions offered from the other. Those sons of Blackfoot families who have fallen in battle could be extended an invitation to adopt a Cree son, to comfort the family in place, though not in substitute, of the one who was lost. In all, the warfare of Plains

Cree Texts does not involve the goal of eradicating an enemy, but of testing one’s own strength against an opponent. An individual's strength may be measured by the strength of her74 or his enemy and so, in stark opposition to conventional state-driven

74 There were many instances of Indigenous women participating in warfare. See Beatrice Medicine, "'Warrior

108 war, the empowerment and well being of an enemy is of interest to the okihcihtâw, meaning ‘s/he gives freely to others’ and understood as worthy young man (often translated as warrior), and a nation as a whole.

Regarding intent, George Cardinal in the Alberta Elders' Cree Dictionary's introduction referring to the dictionary itself says: "alperta ohci kêhtêhayak nêhiyaw otwêstamâkêwasinahikan - is an honoring gift to all my great Cree ancestors." (Cardinal

1998, 2). Through a strengthening and celebration of narrative artistry in the language, this conversation may contribute to the empowerment of the Anishnaabe and Cree by affirming the value of classical ideas. In other words following that "stories are internalized and rethought and woven into existing experience," (McLeod 2000, 38) once incorporated into a person's character they may impart life, stamina, vigor, determination, mental acuity, conceptual agility, and improved well being to both storyteller or author and/or listener or reader. In addition, knowledge and strength can move in two directions at once, and friendships with younger people mediated by story also contribute to the continued learning and improved well-being of older people.

Again these later properties of classical knowing serve as personal, community and national medicines of healing and empowerment.

It is the roots followed to the leaves of the tree that are of interest here, so that the student of neoclassical Cree or Anishnaabe practices may be empowered by several levels of understanding with regard to how a certain modern poetic practice came to be.

Women': Sex Role Alternatives for Plains Indian Women," in The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women, edited by Patricia Albers and Beatrice Medicine. Washington DC: University Press of America, 1983: 267–80. This is separate from the convention of two-spirited people, where women could take on the role and station of men, and men could take on the role and station of women if desired.

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In many ways this inquiry looks for the origin stories of modern stories, with an expectation that no end to the depth of the original roots of the tree may be found - they descend into history indefinitely.

An additional purpose of looking at the Plains Cree Texts is to balance the conversation regarding ancestral narrative that began with looking at Ojibwa Texts evenly between Cree and Anishnaabe perspectives. These two texts mirror one another in that they represent some of the oldest, most extensive, and consistently scripted texts in Cree and Anishnaabe language. They also parallel one another in thematic content at times while expressing some similarity in terms of critical value. Each has similar problems surrounding publication and collection that provide the reader with challenging puzzles of interpretation and presentation of the texts. These riddles have to do with the anthropological motivations surrounding collection and publication at the time, translation choices, and the auspices under which each of the texts was published.

The personalities behind the collection, publication and narration of the texts also factor into their value as learning materials. In this way, interested persons may benefit from appreciating the life stories of those caught amidst the social and historical forces at play during the time of collection and publication of the texts. Finally, the texts represent for each nation, learning materials that might contribute to nation specific and transnational alliance curricula emphasizing the continuation of ancestral thought.

This parallel Cree-Anishnaabe focus hopes to celebrate and uplift the long- standing, understated, and unassuming kinship that exists between these two nations.

Appreciating perspectives from both nations will also allow for the comparison of

110 themes, ideas and similarities across Anishnaabe and Cree languages. This comparison hopes to bring to light common aspects of both nations' narrative knowing that often go unnoticed, while highlighting nation specific uniqueness and difference in perspective.

3.3 Leonard Bloomfield

Leonard Bloomfield was a student of foremost interested in comparative philology, and in this way was very different from William Jones.

Accentuating this difference, assembled texts later including less information regarding contributors than those of William Jones. For that reason the short biographies that appeared in the introduction to Ojibwa Texts do not appear here. However, some interviews of Sweet Grass community members circa 1934 and 1935, several of whom contributed to the Plains Cree Texts, are available through the Indian History Film

Project archives, kept by the University of Regina.

Leonard Bloomfield was Chicago-born of second generation Austrian-Hungarian

Jewish New Yorkers. His family stewarded enlightenment era values, those that emphasized an embrace of reason over religion as the proper way to address the ills of society. Inspired by European enlightenment, many Jewish people pursued secular work and sought to create better relations with Christians and others, maintaining

Hebrew while deliberately assimilating. Bloomfield was a student of language like

Jones, and received his position with the Geological Survey of Canada in the Canadian

Department of Mines through the recommendation of Americanist linguist Edward Sapir who was working with the survey through Victoria Museum. Jewish social

111 consciousness may have contributed to the Americanist tradition in anthropology by influencing the understanding of Indigenous narrative as something that ought to be considered with the same gravity as European classical literatures.

The emphasis on multilingualism in Jewish communities, due to the appreciation for Hebrew accompanied by the necessity of having to learn additional languages in order to survive, may also have contributed to the strong Jewish presence in linguistics.

Consider that Edward Sapir, Leonard Bloomfield and Franz Boas all were secular,

Enlightenment-minded Jewish people. This may have been very good for modern linguistics if it has granted the field a much needed emphasis on dialogic morality that it may have otherwise lacked. In Chaim Potok's The Chosen (1967) for example two

Jewish American families in New York, one orthodox and one less so both regardless encouraged a high level of critical debate as a normal part of youth education. This practice of disciplined balanced debate combined with a relatively flexible understanding of God also may have influenced Jewish American linguists to grant

Indigenous orators the benefit of the doubt with regards to the assumed quality of community oratory. Finally Jewish Americans, having suffered a long history of persecution would have empathized with Indigenous communities who had been subject to, and continue to be subject to, similar pressures. This is not meant to reduce individual Jewish American linguists' accomplishments to familial or community influence; it is only to say that such may have positively affected these scholars' willingness to look beyond the invisible walls of conventional western linguistics, towards a collective vision of broader relationality.

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Bloomfield's academic writing focused on the study and teaching of language and he would eventually come to work closely with Menominii language as well as with

Cree. Bloomfield's interest in the study of language seemed to be purely topical and had little to do with a social conscience, unless he kept such to himself, while his writing was characterized by methodical meticulousness. He had a direct and terse style, and was said to be a strict and quiet teacher. Furthermore, he had a tendency towards shyness, a quality that seemed to intensify as he got older - to the point where in his later years he avoided even polite inquiries regarding his personal life or thoughts. It is possible that some of these character traits may be the result of traumatic experiences he suffered while in public school in his youth in Elkhart, Wisconsin.75 Bloomfield had a rich family life, with two adopted sons, one Menominii and the other adopted from an orphanage at the request of his Menominii son. His family had experienced, like all families, some tragedy - his younger sister having committed suicide. In short, he may have had in some ways a personal connection to his work with Indigenous communities, though his personality was rarely perceptible in his work.

In the following stories from the Plains Cree Texts, Bloomfield's meticulousness is reminiscent of the work of William Jones, as the texts are characterized by consistency and faithfulness to the original idea-order of the words presented in either language.

That is not to say that Bloomfield's translations are perfect, as no translation can be.

Here, more contemporary definitions of words, tempered by personal experience in the

Anishnaabemowin speaking communities of Curve Lake, Chimnissing and Rama among

75 The previous biographical information comes from A Life for Language : A Biographical Memoir of Leonard Bloomfield (1990).

113 others, there are provided here, for the sake of comparison alternative new translations proposedafter each passage. While not at all definitive, these new translations are meant to illuminate some of the nuances in meaning that Bloomfield may have missed given the language toolset available to him at the time, and the expectations of publication restricting him, while providing contrast to his more embellished translation style.

One final aspect of the method emerging here of course is a focus on language.

In this method, close readings of the texts with special attention given to what words mean in terms of layered associations in addition to their literal meanings will help open conversations regarding the deeper, possibly overlooked meanings of the texts. The compounded effects of numerous subtle translation adjustments can result in fairly different readings of texts overall. In the following sections alternative translations are offered given new insights into the meaning of words (made possible by Cree community members’ development of dictionaries and word lists since Bloomfield’s transcription of the stories in 1925), most notably the LeClaire, Cardinal, Hunter and

Waugh, alperta ohci kehtehayak nehiyaw otwestamâ kewasinahikan - Alberta Elders'

Cree Dictionary (1998). Cree and Anishnaabe narrative suspension of multiple possibilities common to many of the stories may go well with this approach as multiple readings formulate a varied composite image that may offer some insight into the original intended meanings of the texts.

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3.4 Social Consciousness in Three Stories from the Plains Cree Texts

Social consciousness emerges as a pattern across the following three stories: nâhnamiskwêkâpaw Louis Moosomin’s ‘The Character and Knowledge of the Cree’, kâ-kîsikaw pîhtokêw Coming Day’s ‘The Birth of Wîsahkêcâhk’76 and nâhnamiskwêkâpaw Louis Moosomin’s ‘The Origin of Mankind’. The following occurs in

'The Character and Knowledge of the Cree' narrated by nâhnamiskwêkâpaw Louis

Moosomin in Leonard Bloomfield's Plains Cree Texts (1934):

77 wiyawâw kahkiyaw kîkwây maci-kêkwây nêhiyawak 78 them all/every what bad-things (the) (Cree) people

79 maci-mantôwa atoskawêwak itwêwak ayamihêw-iyiniwak (the) bad mysterious quality they work for him/her they say (the) Catholic prayer-men namôya niynân nêhiyaw ôta askîhk ohci kiki-pakitinâw no we (the) human/person (Cree) place (the) earth then is released home maci-manitowâh mîna manitôw-okosisa namôya ohci (the) bad spirit also (the) mystery/creator’s-son does not then kiskêyimêw nêhiyaw s/he knows her/him (the) human/person (Cree) mîna maci-manitôw k-isiyîhkâsot namôya nêhiyaw kiskêyimêw also (the) bad mysterious quality it is called does not person (Cree) she/he know him/her

76 Bloomfield spells this 'Wîhsakecâhkw'

77 In accordance with LeClaire, Nancy, Harold Cardinal, Emily Hunter, and Earle H. Waugh. Alberta Elders' Cree Dictionary, Alperta Ohci Kehtehayak Nehiyaw Otwestamâ Kewasinahikan. (1998) the orthography here changes Bloomfield's 'u' to 'o', 'ä' to 'e', and long vowel marks as in 'ā' to 'â', as does it replace Bloomfield's spelling with more contemporary spellings indicated by the same source. Bloomfield's 'otchi' becomes 'ohci' for example.

78 The parentheses here represent meanings in English that accompany the words in addition to their direct literal translations. Here the direct translation of nêhiyawak is 'people' or 'human beings' wherein the associated attached meanings of the word in context would be 'the Cree people'.

79 Sacred power or God; the basic mysterious quality in the universe. (Plains). Alt. manito (Northern).' From the Cree Online Dictionary (http://www.creedictionary.com) and alternatively from the Alberta Elders' Cree Dictionary, which is one of the primary references that the Cree Online Dictionary draws from, and maybe the most respected dictionary currently in use in Cree communities.

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Bloomfield's translation: "To be sure, the Cree perform all kinds of evil things for the Evil Spirit," say the missionaries. On the contrary: the Cree was not put down here on earth with these things; the Cree has never known an Evil Spirit or a Son of God. (4|5)

Author’s translation80: The missionaries say that the people do disruptive things working for the disruptive mystery. No, we the Cree, are not then released to our home on the land knowing the mystery's son, or the one that is called the disruptive mystery.

This expression of how Christianity is talked about inside the Cree language reveals something of how Christian ideas may at times have sounded to Cree speakers in the past. The coded concept of loyalty to church authority drops out of the meanings carried within the language, instead objectifying the church as an institution worthy of merit only where its actions are sound. In addition, while some sense of Cree abstract thinking falls out of Bloomfield's English translation, some is regained via the proposed alternative translations. Many of the rhetorical shifts asserted in passages such as these would have challenged missionaries to reexamine their own ideas, as would many of the interpretations of biblical concepts Cree people made in the language, when translating

Christian ideas into Cree language. For example, where God translates as kisê-manito - the mysterious quality of the universe, Creator,81 the Devil translates as maci-manitôw -

80 The alternative translations are provided by the author, and represent my best attempt at communicating the meanings of words and sentences in a way closer to what the words mean to Cree speakers as opposed to how they can be distorted by some English translations. As in any translation these will only approximate intended meanings at times and do not in any way claim to retain all of the original intended meaning. These translations occur here to demonstrate an approach that may be useful to future students, and to provide a contrast to Bloomfield's translations. William Jones translations are so close in syntax to the original that less need of an additional translation exists in Ojibwa Texts, though translation as a practice is always interesting and insightful.

81 Sometime ‘Creator’ in English refers also to the elder brother, the transformational beings. That Cree people conceptualize a universal force in some ways subverts missionization. At so many turns missionaries seem to have been at first pleased and then later frustrated. Pleased because it seemed that Cree people already knew God, and frustrated because this made their participation in church hierarchies redundant. Making them better know the Devil became an alternative, but that in its own way can only be taken so far before the church ends up seeming macabre or plainly extremist. And so to some degree, the language surrounding kisê-manito has protected the people from the church.

116 the mysterious disruptive spirit, or power, and Jesus translates as the mysterious power of the universe's son, the Creator’s son. These examples reveal something of the depth of meaning that close translation and retranslation can shape, as do they illustrate something of the great divide that often exists between the thinking between the Cree and English speakers.

The Bible was translated from Hebrew into English, then translated by missionaries who did not speak Cree as a first language into Cree; and here we find

Leonard Bloomfield translating the result, with the help of some community guided revision, back into English. Studying missionary texts critically often leads to understandings of some of the differences and similarities that exist between

Indigenous and western thought. Among some of the texts that may challenge an interested reader, Eugene Vetromile’s The (1866) provides a wealth of material in this regard, as do The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents (1896). Rebecca

Kugel’s Missionaries and Their Cattle… (1994) provides a very strong example of

Anishnaabe – English social misunderstanding, worthy of study in and of itself. Critical readings of texts reveal patterns of difference while showing how church authorities used rhetorical devices to manipulate both their membership in Europe and in North

America to provide their denomination leadership financial assistance. They did this either by demonizing Indigenous people or by painting them as wayward lost souls in dire need of salvation. Amidst this chaotic mix of text, one will find references to often debate-like conversations between local people and missionaries, that illuminate differences in thought and perspective. This makes for challenging but rewarding

117 reading – the striking aspect of which is its pertinence present-day to topics and misunderstandings.

Looking at successive layers of translation provides insight in understanding ancestral ideas imbedded in the language, while it also aids in understanding differences in perspective extant between two peoples. In Plains Cree Texts metaphors differ from those in English as do those in Ojibwa Texts. These often have to do with relation or kinship, the animacy of creation, and the value of everyday life as mentioned. This in turn suggests something of the nature of the relationship between different peoples as does it help illuminate how Cree or Anishnaabe peoples understand their relationship with the land, community and the universe.

Âtayôhkêwina is rarely straightforward or simple and western demands that it appear so have caused a great deal of confusion over the years. Historical circumstances that ask for three or four layers of understanding, are often rarefied and reduced to an oversimplified tag-line, which becomes the singular memory to be passed on. Compressed memory may engender efficiency but it serves in the west also as an assistant to myopic perception, as compounded, compressed memories coalesce into easily understandable, but inaccurate dominant realities.

Cree people were and are involved in a kind of interpretive translation of sermons and biblical texts, guided by a uniquely refined narrative practice. This is apparent in Bloomfield's continued translation of nâhnamiskwêkâpaw Louis

Moosomin's oratory, referring to the life of Jesus:

êkwa sipwêhtêw and also (s/he) sets out

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niphîk êsa waskitipimohtêw on the water apparently on the surface (s/he) walks mistahi ê-manitôwit a great deal (s/he) expresses the mysterious essential quality of the universe

êkwa êh-takohtê êkotê ispimihk and also (when) (s/he) arrives over there way up wîkiyihk pakicîw ôhi kâ-wî-kakwê-nipahikot at the home he releases these one’s here they (that) will try to kill him wâpamawak kihiw iteyimêwak they see (an) eagle (so) they think

Bloomfield's translation: Then he set out; he walked over the surface of the water, so great was his spirit power. Then when he arrived up aloft, at the others' dwelling he alighted, at the dwelling of those who were going to try to kill him. They saw him, they thought he was an Eagle.

Author’s translation: And he sets out, on the surface of the water he apparently walks, a great deal he expresses the spirit of the universe. And also when he lets go to go over there, way up at the home of these one’s here that will try to kill him, they thought they were seeing an eagle.

It has been noted often in the past that priests translated Indigenous stories into biblical frameworks. How Cree or Anishnaabe people have translated European ideas into local Cree or Anishnaabe conceptual frameworks is talked about less. This has been an ongoing act of individual and community empowerment and of self-determination, which continues today.

The same narrative later reveals a kind of speech that might be aligned with the notion of political speech or social criticism, a mode or theme that appears in

Bloomfield's other Cree Texts such as Sacred Stories of the Sweet Grass Cree (1930) as well as in Freda Ahenakew's many edited works:

82 nayestaw wâpiski-wiyâs maci-manitowâ wiya e-kiskinôhamâkot weyôtisiwin

82 ‘maci-‘ in Cree or the sister word stem ‘maji-’ in Anishnaabemowin generally translates into English as a negative,

119 only white skin bad mysterious quality her/him (s/he) is taught affluence

êkosi niyanân mâskôc namôya nikiskiwyimikonân maci--manitowâ so we perhaps no we are (not) known to (the) bad mystery ekosi k-ôh-kitimâkisiyâhk that is why we are lacking in material possessions mistahi ayâw nêhiyaw kisewâtisiwin pikwite eh-pîhtokêyit ayîsiyiniwa a great deal has (the) Cree kindness wherever (s/he) enters a person kiyâm owêyôtisiwah asamêw namwach ahpôh wîkâc tipahikêhêw its ok a rich person (s/he) feeds (her/him) not at all or rarely (s/he) pays (her/him)

Bloomfield's translation: Since only the White Man was taught by the Evil Spirit how to acquire wealth, perhaps we others are not known to the Evil Spirit. The Cree has much human kindness; wherever it be, if a man, and be he a rich man, enters a dwelling, he gives him food; in no case does he make him pay for it. (6|7)

Author’s translation: Only the whites are taught excess by the de-stabilizing mysterious quality of the universe, so maybe we are not known to this harmful mystery. That is why we lack material possessions. The Cree have a great deal of kindness, anywhere a person enters (a home) it doesn't matter if they are rich, the Cree will feed them; not at all or rarely will they (have to) pay (for it).

This political commentary is addressed to European descent people's power structure and to the Cree community. At the height of when Indian Act Section 114 restricted ceremony and traditional thought including the Sundance, this commentary criticizes the missionaries for their resolute brutish arrogance and unfounded criticism of Cree people. This demonstrates that the Cree as a people were and are well aware of the negative image imposed upon them by the churches and by the sometimes rogue ignorance of the church in doing so. This criticism further aligns European descent societies with affluence and elitism, understood as character-imbalances from Cree ancestral narrative perspective, and the disruptive mysterious essential qualities of the

though the contextual framing of the word part determines additional meaning. For that reason, ‘maci-‘ or ‘maji-‘, might translate depending on original intended meaning as tempered by the personality of the translator as ‘bad’, ‘evil’, ‘dissonant’, ‘de-stabilizing’, or otherwise. Multiple translations reveal multiple possibilities but they also suggests points of triangulation where the original intended meaning may be better deduced.

120 universe. This again is an act of empowerment as well as it is a reflective reversal of the church's scrutiny of the people. Finally it represents a powerful rhetorical communication, one that missionaries could not have helped but hear as a direct and pragmatic point of criticism, highlighting the hypocrisy of Christianity in the context of the imposed power structure. Though it is not apparent from the text as it stands, neither does Bloomfield have anything to say in this regard, it might have been dangerous for nâhnamiskwêkâpaw to have spoken in this way at that time - the Indian

Agent, essentially the warden for the reserve, itself a kind of wilderness gulag, being not far off. Consider the political pressure Cree public figures were under in the 1930’s when the Plains Cree Texts were published. Stan Cuthand in his introduction to the

1995 edition of Edward Ahenakew’s Voices of the Plains Cree (1973) relates:

On one occasion Edward Ahenakew privately told my father that he was very angry at another bishop. It was at the moment when Bishop Walter Burd insisted that Edward quit his work as vice-president of the League of Indians for Western Canada. He had been on a trip to Ottawa to speak to the Department of Indian Affairs on behalf of the League. The Indian Department urged the bishop to tell him to attend to his duties as a churchman and not to meddle with the affairs of the state. Bishop Burd offered him no choice but to discontinue his work with the League. He came to the meetings of the League at Poundmaker' s Reserve in 1933 and stayed for a while; then he disappeared and the people said he looked sad. I remember James Wuttunee saying, "We should make him an honorary vice -president so we can keep him with the organization." Publicly, Edward said he was resigning because of his health . His health was never very good, but he told my father in the car on the way from the train station that the truth was that the bishop forced him to quit the League. (Cuthand in Ahenakew 1973 in Ahenakew, Buck (Eds.) 1995, xviii)

Several reasons why the Plains Cree Texts may have been published at all might have to do with the fact that an outsider was pursuing the work from a big university and that

121 the publication was unlikely to be circulated in Cree country. There is also the issue that sacred stories may have been considered by the churches at the time to be benign and so not worth censoring overmuch. Cree people forwarding Cree thought clearly could not openly be involved in politics without risk at the time of the volume’s publication and so the apparent environs or political vacuum these and the Ojibwe Texts seemed to have presented in is suspect. Neither William Jones or Leonard Bloomfield described in the introductions to their work anything regarding the political climate surrounding the collection of the texts. This during a time of great hardship among Cree and Anishnaabe people leaves the reader facing one of those glaring historical absences Gerald Vizenor speaks about repeatedly in his work, thereby ‘teasing the reader to see the absences’ in western wrought histories of Indigenous people (Vizenor in Vizenor and Lee 1999, 85).

One final point related to social criticism of the Christian power structure, as interpreted through Cree language, appears early on in Plains Cree Texts at the close of

Louis Moosomin's narration titled 'The Character and Knowledge of the Cree': nîyanân mîna nitayânân manitôw okiskinôhamâkêwin we also we have (exclusive) (a) mysterious quality of the universe way of teaching/learning ayisk namoya niyanân n-ôh-nipahânân manitôw okosisa for no we we kill her/him (a) mysterious essence of the universe (his/her) son

êwako ohci namôya nnisitaweyimokân maci-manitôw that one for that no we are known to her/him (the) disruptive mystery/power

êwâk ohci êkâ kêkway kaskihtâwin k-ôh-ayâyâhk that one for that no what ability we have

Bloomfield's translation: We, too, have a teaching of God. You see, not we have ever slain God's Son; that is why the Evil One does not know us. And that is why we have no kind of worldly power. (12|13)

Author’s translation: We (excluding Bloomfield) also have a way of teaching and learning regarding the mysterious quality of the universe. For we do not kill him, the son of the

122 mystery. For that reason we are not known to the disruptive mysterious quality of the universe. For that reason we have no ability or power (in excess).

This passage represents a pointed instance of the rhetorical prowess that has characterized Indigenous oratory throughout the colonialism. During this time a great variation of rhetorical prowess has been mastered by Indigenous authors and orators and that deftness in framing oratory continues today.83 Here, the commentary succeeds in both highlighting the hypocrisy of church criticisms of Cree thought, and maintaining an assertion of pragmatic, direct and moderate community-based thinking regarding the nature of the universe. The intent is to appeal to the missionary forces in the hopes that they might self-examine, and thereby limit their criticisms of others, in light of a heightened appreciation for their own internal contradictions. This is political commentary and social criticism at its finest, cloaked in the visage of theological conversation, much like to the invocation of Christianity in Louise Halfe’s prayer-poetry in Bear Bones and Feathers (1994), Blue Marrow (1998, 2004), and The Crooked Good

(2007) as we will see in the later chapter that talks about her poetry.

The missionary dialogue seems to focus on conversion while the Cree dialogue seems focuses on universal humanism, appealing to the condition of the relationship between individuals involved in the conversation at that moment. The missionary seems to be saying ‘Your conversion will better serve civilization and God’, while

Moosomin’s response approximates the intent of: ‘Isn’t the aggressive cast of your

83 For examples of different kinds of rhetorical speech and the immensity of persuasive forms employed by Indigenous orators refer to Steven Mintz (Etd.), Native American Voices, St. James, New York: Brandywine Press (Etd.) 1995.

123 rhetoric poisoning the conversation, lessening the possibility of a good relationship between the church and myself in the moment? What good is conversion if the conversation surrounding conversion creates enmity?’

In Sacred Stories of the Sweet Grass Cree (1930), the partner text to Plains Cree

Texts, the following appears in 'The Birth of Wîhsakecâhkw84 and ‘the Origin of Mankind' narrated also by nâhnamiskwêkâpaw Louis Moosomin.85 Learning more about his life and the life of the other orators in Plains Cree Texts would help to provide context to

86 and an understanding of the personalities behind the stories: nêhiyaw kây-isiyîhkâsot piko kây-itak (the) Cree (who) is called only I say to her/him

êkâya ayamihâkan do not pray in Christian fashion namôya kiya kâ-miyitan no you to you I do not give nitwâsimisa ohcitaw nimiyâw wâpiski-wiyâs my son destiny I give to her/him (the) white person (lit. of the white flesh) kita-kakwâtakihod that s/he may suffer wiya e-kîh-nipahâd ntwâsimisah her/him (s/he that) killed her/him my son kîh-itwew esah manitôw s/he said evidently (the) mysterious quality of the universe

84 This has been changed to wîhsakecâhkw, the Alberta Elder's Cree Dictionary spelling from Bloomfield's 'Wisahketchahk'.

85 As an aside, a renewed interest in kistêsinaw, in the elder brother beings, the transformational beings, i.e. wîhsakecâhkw since the 1970’s may have contributed to a rise in popularity of Sacred Stories of the Sweet Grass Cree over Plains Cree Texts. Again it is regretful that Bloomfield does not say more about nâhnamiskwêkâpaw Louis Moosomin.

86 Though outside the scope of this work at the present time, it may be of interest to the Cree nation to look towards conversing with the descendants of those who visited with Bloomfield during his transcribing of these Cree texts in 1925. The stories surrounding the writing down of the texts may illuminate something of the intent, and character of both author-narrators and transcriber as well as the relationship between the two.

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Bloomfield's Translation: "I say this to him only who is called Indian: thou shalt not worship in Christian wise! Not to thee do I give this. I give my Son to the white man, that he may suffer for having slain my Son," said the Lord. (20|21)

Author’s translation: "I say this to the Cree: Do not pray in a Christian way. I do not give this to you. It is destined that I give my son to she or he that is white in flesh, that he or she may suffer, for having killed my son." evidently said the mystery. nâhnamiskwêkâpaw Louis Moosomin here reinforces the premise of the previous passage, that the imposition of Christianity on the Cree people is not proper, as the burden of guilt that comes from having killed Christ belongs to those of European descent who were complicit in the act, and not to the Cree people. This is a powerful statement and represents a total rejection of the basic tenet that underlies submission to church authority. In it is a statement of Cree independence and autonomy, tailored to communicate directly with a European-descent Christian power structure, in a way that is clear, direct, rhetorically clever and evenly diplomatic.

What emerges from these two closely related narratives is the theme of persuasive social criticism, characterized by a creative restatement of an externally imposed idea, in this case the burden of the crucifixion. The original idea is restated to the original author of the idea, in this case the church, in such a way as to point out how strange, disjointed and even absurd the idea may sound when communicated to a Cree audience. The subtext of nâhnamiskwêkâpaw Louis Moosomin’s statement is to say to the church: ‘After all the cruelties you have enacted upon us, you cannot expect us to shoulder the burden of guilt that you carry for having killed one of your own, a man who you consider one of you greatest healers, one of your greatest medicine people.’ So again, the pattern that emerges here is that of diplomatic rhetorical social criticism and anti-colonial, even indigenizing consciousness, a theme that we may look for in other

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Cree ancestral narrative, and ancestrally-influenced contemporary literature. nâhnamiskwêkâpaw Louis Moosomin’s rhetorical speech would not have been considered political activism at the time, but in afterthought looking at his words begs the question as to whether many of these conversations were in a way not contributing to the eventual realization of the Civil Rights Movement, each in their own small way.

With regards to politics Cree Metís poet Gregory Scofield in a September 1999 interview by Linda Richards for January Magazine agrees that there is a long standing relationship between Indigenous life and political content:

I was taught that everything you do from the way you brush your teeth, to the way you comb your hair to the way you walk down the street is political. You're showing your politics and what you believe. (Scofield, 2010, 1)

In a similar way it may well be the case that the political effect of nâhnamiskwêkâpaw

Louis Moosomin’s oratory does not come about as a result of perceiving a separation of political thinking from the flow of thought that define his stories. Ironically, by not necessarily intending politics, nâhnamiskwêkâpaw’s narrative content is free to have a greater political impact, as is the case with much âtayôhkêwina - sacred stories and

âcimosowina - life histories.

3.5 Kinship and Relation in kâ-kîsikaw pîhtokêw Coming Day’s Man and Bear

Some of the Plains Cree Texts demonstrate marked similarities in both theme and content to the Ojibwa Texts. The themes of kinship illustrated in 'The Boy that Was

Carried Away by a Bear' (Ojibwa Texts) resemble those in 'Man and Bear' (Plains Cree

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Texts) that follows. In kâ-kîsikaw pîhtokêw , Coming Day’s 'Man and Bear'87 the story begins with a young Cree man having been injured in a fight with other Cree people who mistook him for a stranger. This story may be of interest to those learning about traditional medicine, as bears sometimes aid healers by giving them medicine teachings, diagnostic vision, and visceral power. Along these lines, in They Knew Both Sides of the

Medicine (2000), Alice Ahenakew tells of Andrew Ahenakew's vision wherein he receives his curative abilities from a bear. In this vision as in the following story the bear speaks to Andrew in a way that he can understand with clarity. Bears mediate Anishnaabe medicine as well and are treated with respect as in Maude Kegg's Portage Lake:

Memories of an Ojibwe Childhood (1991). In this work, the narrator relates that bears have at times been honored with funerals:

Then I looked the other way and there it was, a bear’s head. The bear was just huge and was all decorated with ribbons. There were a lot of dishes around in there. An old man spoke, but I don’t remember what he said. It was just like somebody died, a regular funeral. That’s what they did long ago. (Kegg 1991, 175)

‘Man and Bear’ picks up when after his injury and lying still in a tent so as to best recover from his wounds, the young man is surprised to find that a bear enters: pôti akâmâyihk nêtê kâ-pimotêyit what is this! at the other side over there (s/he) walked itê ê-itiskwêsihk êkota kâ-nîpawiyit to (while) (s/he) lies with (his/her) head that way right there (as) (s/he) slept

êkwa namôya kî-waskawîw now no (s/he) moved kîtatawê êkota kâ-nîpawiyit sometimes that right there (as) (s/he) slept

87 This is listed as story #37 (164|165) 'Man and Bear' in Plains Cree Texts (1934). The title is not given in Cree as such; for the sake of pragmatism it seems to have been provided by Bloomfield, as is the case with the other stories.

127 ohcisiyah ômisi ê-itastât wâkayôs88 (s/he) lies on that side like this (while) (s/he) places it (the) bear

êkota ê-aspsikwêsimot that right there (while) (s/he) lies with (his/her) head on something

ê-apit âskaw ê-kitâpamât ôh ôskinîkiw (as) (s/he) sits once in a while (while) (s/he) looks at (him/her) oh (the) young man

ê-pôn-âpihtâ-kîsikâyik, kîtahtawê tâpiskôt ê-ati-miywamahtsihot (when) it is past the half-day at this time it seems (as though) (s/he) progressively feels good k-êtêyihtahk aw ôskinîkiw (s/he) thinks strongly (well/feels good) this (the) young man

Bloomfield's translation: But it walked along the far side of the tent, and stood in the direction of his head, as he lay. He was not able to move. Presently the bear sat down there, placing its fore paws like this, and leaning its head on them, as it sat there, gazing at that young man. When the day was past noon, then at one time it seemed to that young man as if he were feeling better and better. (174|175)

The following translation is given to show the amount and density of information related to 3rd and 4th person. Oftentimes translations seem blunt or indirect when in truth they have all of the descriptive information normal to any conversation. This information is often lost in translation as English does not use declension or 4th person in the same way. To include all this information in every translation would be cumbersome. To do it once or twice or where 4th person is the subject of conversation is more reasonable.

Author’s translation: What is this! To the other side (s/he) (4th person – the bear89) walked, while (he) (3rd person - the young man) slept, lying with his head that way. (He) (3rd) did not move. (S/he) (4th) lies on that side like this, while (s/he) (4th) lies with his head on something.90 As (s/he) (4th) sits, from time to time (s/he)(4th) looks at (him)(3rd) the young man. When it is past noon, (he) (3rd) it seemed to the young man that he was feeling better and better, his thinking had become strong.

88 wâkayôs is a ceremonial term for Bear.

89 For this translation, the 3rd and 4th person are included, so as to give the reader a better sense of how the language sounds internally. While the gender of the young man is established through the use of the word ôskinîkiw 'young man', in truth the gender of the bear is never stated outright. Bloomfield implies that the bear is male, and here that convention follows for simplicity's sake. It is possible the bear's gender is female, though if the bear's gender were important to the story we could generally expect that the narrator would state this.

90 The narrator must have demonstrated how the bear was sitting with its chin on its hands (bears have 'hands' in Cree, not paws). In addition the sentence would not technically translate as 'he', but as 's/he' - '3rd' or '4th' person.

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To compare, in terms of poetic accuracy, traditional African American stories would have had little place in either Booker Washington’s Tuskegee or in W.E.B. Dubois’ new intellectualism. Instead traditional stories remain at home, untouched by the potential damaging effects of the public eye. In terms of Indigenous intellectualism and pragmatism traditional narratives have similarly been protected, allowed to be used in public settings only in certain cases. Narratives themselves and the themes within have persisted, becoming in many cases the intellectual foundation for much contemporary writing, art, dance and so on. African-American poet Langston Hughes’ work illustrates this current state of affairs, as he understood the narrative art of blues music as the foundation for his poetry. Blues as the foundation for Hughes’ poetry is much like Cree and Anishnaabe ancestral narrative as the foundation for writing. Blues , echoes and resonances didn’t predict everything Hughes would write, but provided the common thread than ran throughout his work. Hughes also contributed in his own way to African-American nationalism, much in the same way that the works of Cree and

Anishnaabe narrative artists have done. Consider these lines from his poem ‘My

People’: “The night is beautiful, So the faces of my people. The stars are beautiful, So the eyes of my people. Beautiful, also, is the sun. Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.” (Hughes 1959, 13) He painted a more accurate picture of his people than establishment histories had done, or arguably could ever do in emphasizing the everyday beauty of communities and individuals.

Poetics in oratory and writing provide a means not to dictate to an audience one’s meaning and intentions, but to illustrate and suggest ideas and emotions to an

129 audience, such that the character, purpose, and mentality of the audience is left room to participate in the authorship of meaning. This is why poetics have some applicability in Cree and Anishnaabe contexts, because as a set of techniques they allow room for personal ideological, emotional and creative autonomy. Unlike formal lecturing or mandative oratory or text, poetics satisfy Cree and Anishnaabe valuation of the basic right and ability to self-determine while enabling an emotionally accurate history.

That residential school meant to sever communities from community-authored stories is unquestionable. For some that severance occurred leading to great challenges in health; for others the stories continued, although they may have become in some ways invisible, disembodied, or resident only in dreams for a time. For all there remains the possibility of regaining the stories, and more importantly regaining the ability to author new stories, which is what ancestral narrative practice has always entailed.

Enhancing pre-extant embers of narrative ancestral practice is a 'working up from' rather than a 'catching up to' model, leading invariably to enhanced individual and community health and empowerment, while assuming a high degree of individual strength and worth. That is not to say that programs should be developed that force individuals to learn creative writing, ceremony, or that an individual should necessarily learn the old stories at all. It is only to say that societies may do well to grow in such a way as to allow for the acknowledgement that narrative strength is a human universal right, and that individuals tend to thrive when given the room and the power to embrace narrative creation in their own way. If an individual wishes to learn the old stories and language or to interpret ancestral narrative practice in new mediums such as

130 film or music then we might do well to see that every encouragement and support is afforded that individual.

In this story, the bear exhibits endearing and non-threatening behaviors, resting its head on its paws and watching the young man, worried about his health. Notice also that in order to say that one is happy or feeling good, it is possible to express this in

Cree by saying: 'k-êtêyihtahk', or 's/he (may be)91 is thinking strongly'. Alternatively this could be stated as 'he or she expresses thought patterns of a robust, stable, steady or strong nature.' This idea of happiness is a little different than the English word associations of 'happiness' that often align the term with intimations of jubilance, exuberance, or joy. These meanings are not necessarily implied by the nêhiyawêwin used here, only that pragmatically the young man feels that his thoughts are stabilizing and becoming gradually more steadfast, healthfully robust, and predictable. Subtle distinctions indicated not by a word's technical definition but carried in the associated meanings that surround a word can affect a translation considerably, especially when unspoken meaning associations compound exponentially throughout a piece. This is one of the greatest challenges of translation – knowing not just the literal definitions for words but the webs of associated meanings that surround a word, understood from

92 within both languages involved in the translation.

91 This is the conjunct mode of the word, which can mean 'must be, if, when, while, that s/he is thinking strongly, is happy or content, or of sound mind.' In this context it translates as something close to 'must have been thinking strongly', or 'while s/he is thinking strongly'.

92 This is understood in formal linguistics as semiotics, a word which might be criticized as seeming to unnecessarily complicate what is a natural and commonplace, even unconscious, practice of any multilingual person. Semiotics, semantics and syntax all people linguistics with concepts yielding lengthy, in-depth discussion. The problem has to do with the challenge of recursivity, that is attempting understandings of a language using the language itself to pursue

131

During the fifth day of rest after the young man's injury:

ê-kitâpamât ômisi itik pîkiskwêyiwa 93 94 (while) (s/he) looks at (him/her)(3->3') like this (pc) (s/he) says (s/he) speaks to (him/her) (3'->3) ninipin kitêyihtên I am dying (1 ind.) you think (vai 2 ind.) namôya kika-kîh-nipin kêtikot no (pc) you will not die (vai 2 fut. ind.) (s/he) says to (him/her) (vta 3'->3) ayâ matwân cî ê-tâpwêt itêyihtam so (pc) I wonder (pc) question marker (pc) it (may) be true (3 vii conj.) (s/he) thinks (vii 3)

êha kika-pimâtisin kêtikot yes (pc) you will live (2 fut. ind.) (s/he) says to (him/her) (vta 3'->3)

Bloomfield's translation: When he looked at it, it spoke to him as follows, speaking like a man: “ 'I am dying,' you think. You shall not by any chance die,” it said to him.” “Alas, I wonder if he speaks true?” he thought. “Yes, you will live” it told him. (174|175)

Author’s translation: While looking at it like this, it says, it speaks to him: “I am dying,' you think. “No, you will not die,” it says to him. “So I wonder, it may be true?” he thinks. “Yes, you will live,” it tells him.

These translations are very close; however, the reader may notice that Bloomfield's translations have some flourish that add meaning beyond the literal in subtle ways.

Bloomfield, for example translates: ...itik pîkiskwêyiwa 'it says, it speaks to him' as '...it spoke to him as follows, speaking like a man.' In addition he chooses to render the future tense here as 'shall' instead of 'will', and 'kika-kîh-nipin' 'you will not die' as 'you shall not by any chance die'. These translation choices result in text seeming almost

those understandings.

93 This is another notation that is sometimes used to indicate whom is speaking to whom. In this case the verb reveals the 4th person (the bear) indicated by [3'] speaking to the 3rd person (the young man).

94 This notation style is used here to indicate to the reader that there are different styles of translation that can be used, each including a different density of linguistic information. Translations omitting information regarding subject, object, verb type, noun type will appear herein. This yields a translations style that sacrifices linguistic interest for readability. Using this translation style, language learners can still acquire transitive verb practice without being overly distracted by too great a density of linguistic markers.

132 regal. As the Boasian Americanists like Bloomfield appreciated these texts as something akin to 'high literature', they may have in some cases taken this a step too far, translating stories to sound as though they were spoken by English literati.

Also in this passage, the young man has only to think 'it may be true' when the bear tells him he will not die in order to be understood. The bear seems to be able to understand the young man's thought. Whether this is achieved by empathy and deduction or some other more direct means is unclear. In this kâ-kîsikaw pîhtokêw -

Coming Day leaves room for the possibility that the bear can hear the young man's thoughts.

Eventually, the bear helps the young man to his feet, and the next morning, after a day spent walking short distances, the young man is overcome with exhaustion and cannot walk any further: kâpasikôyit nisihkâc êkosi êkwa miyw-apiw ê-têhtapit (as) (s/he) rises to (his/her) feet gradually so now (s/he) sits well (as) (s/he) sits

êkosîsi ê-sipwêhtêyit ê-at-âmaciwêyit êkwa ê-ayîtâpit just so it sets out (while) (s/he) climbs now (as) (s/he) sits in a certain way

ê-têhtapit ôhi wâkayôsa ê-kîwêhtahikot (as) (s/he) sits this one (the) bear (while) (s/he) takes (him/her) home itê kâ-kîh-ohtohtêtsik êkotê itêhkê ê-isi-kîwêhtahikot to where (s/he) came from such a direction over there in that direction (s/he) goes towards home

Bloomfield's translation: When it rose to its feet, he sank gently into a comfortable sitting position, riding on its back. And so it set out, climbing the rest of the bluff, he the while looking about him95, as he rode the bear which was taking him home. (176|177- 178|179)

95 Again this must have been demonstrated by the narrator, as it does not appear in the original nêhiyawêwin wording.

133

Author’s translation: As it rises to its feet, gradually now he sits upon its back96. Just so, it sets out climbing, as he sits in a certain way. As he sits, this bear takes him home to the direction where he had come from, in that direction he goes home.

The young man eventually is led to water where he drinks several times, and then finally to where buffalo are nearby, at which points he kills one. Bringing back the meat he gives the best cuts to the bear, and the bear insists in the morning, after they have both eaten again that he carry all of the remaining meat on his back. The two continue traveling until nearly all of the meat is gone – the young man having shared freely of the meat with the bear. The bear startles one day and they discover that there are people nearby. The young man explains that the bear must stay hidden in order to avoid being killed and goes to live with his brother-in-law. Every day he returns to the bear so as to give him food, and after awhile his brother-in-law begins to suspect that the young man is feeding someone. At this point the young man speaks with the bear:

ômisi îtêw êh êkwa âni iskwêyâc ê-pê-asamitân so s/he says ah now truly the last time (that) I am come feed you mîn ôh ê-miyitân also this I give you sipwêhtêhkan leave

êkwa kika-nipahik piyisk now (s/he) will kill you in the end

êka wî-sipwêhtêyini itêw negation if you (do not) leave (s/he) says to (him/her)

êha itik â nikwêmê very well (s/he) says to (him/her) so my brother kâkikê kisîwâk ohci kika-kanawêyimitn forever close by from you will be guarded

96 That the young man is riding on the bear's back is either contextually implied, or it may have been demonstrated by the narrator via pantomime.

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Bloomfield's translation: He spoke to it as follows: “Now, this is the last time I am coming to feed you; and I am giving you these things. Go away from this place. He will kill you in the end, if you do not go away,” he told it. “Very well,” it answered him; “Now, Brother, for all time to come, from close by I shall be guarding you.” (188|189)

Author’s translation: So it says: “Ah, now truly this is the last time that I am coming to feed you. Also this I give you. Leave. Now he will kill you97 in the end, if you do not leave,” he (the man) says to him (the bear). “Very well,” he (the bear) says to him (the man); “So my Brother, forever from close by you will be guarded.”

Up until this time there is enough detail shared here regarding the drying and cutting of meat, the time spent sleeping, and the condition of the land so as to emphasize the difficulty and the particulars of survival. The uncertainty of the young man's survival creates suspense and the detailing of the challenges of survival illustrate the determination and skill of the young man. That the bear helps him resonates well with the themes of kinship and lifelong friendship occurring previously in Gaagigebinesi’s

'The Boy who was Carried Away by a Bear' from the Ojibwa Texts. In both a bear takes pity on a human being and in both a bear and a human become friends. Also in both narratives a bear tells a human that he will be forever on hand to help him when need arises. In Ojibwa Texts, the bear tells the boy that if called he will return to let the boy kill him if he is ever hungry. In Plains Cree Texts, the bear tells the young man that he will be forever protected.

In both stories there is a sad departure, as the young man or boy is torn between staying with the bear and returning to live with human beings. In both stories the young man or boy finally chooses to remain with human beings and must say goodbye to the

97 Referring to his brother-in-law.

135 bear. The bear accepts the necessity and practicality of this decision in each instance, though with some sadness as well, as the two have become friends.

The impossibility of friendship across the distances of difference represents a re- occurring theme in Anishnaabe and Cree narrative - an inter-narrative, or ânisko-

âcimowin (McLeod, 2012) as it may be rendered in Cree, a story that binds two things together. Sometimes the divide these friendships bridge is one of wealth, sometimes of country, sometimes of essential nature, and sometimes of world. Sometimes the divide is navigated by innovation, sometimes by magic, an unforeseen accident, or luck. In this case, the division between the two peoples, the human beings and the bears remains, yet the bear's promise to the young man represents a bridge across the rift between peoples that can be maintained perpetually. In this way the reader learns that the tragedy of separation is part of the way the world works, yet there is also the hope of finding commonality - though the duration that that commonality can hold its pattern is invariably limited. So the tendency towards natural separation opposes the existence of an unlikely friendship, and that is where the fundamental tension of the narrative comes from – the play of these two currents running in opposite directions to one another.

Because the men in these stories are young, the friendships made are the friendships of youth and so they take on a special meaning. Aligned with a kind of eternality, they occur in a time outside of time. As the friends made are from different worlds, these friendships of youth defy seeming impossibility. These friendships also come to define the lives of those involved due to their uniqueness and because, had these friendships not been made, both men would not have lived past youth. In terms

136 of the theme of relation, which can seem impersonal when separated from context, this story and Gaagigebinesi’s 'The Boy Who was Carried Away by a Bear' reminds us that kinship is neither impersonal or abstract, but is part of the fabric of everyday life, whose original source is love or caring.

3.6 Humour, Erotica, Family, and Mirrored Realities in sâkêwêw Adam Sâkêwêw's A Bony Spectre Abducts a Woman

The following description related by Adam Sâkêwêw occurs in “A Bony Spectre

98 Abducts a Woman” : nêhiyâw pêyak osîma oskinîkiwa (a) Cree one (his/her) younger brother (is) (a) young man awa ostêsimâw pêyakoyiwa okosisia this (his/her) elder brother is one in number (his/her) son mistahi âkosiyiwa ê-apisîsisit awa nâpâsis very much (s/he) becomes sick (while) (s/he) is small this little man (boy)

êkwa atoskêmôw ayîsiyiniwah ê-atotât also (s/he) employs people (as) he strongly asks of them

Bloomfield's Translation: A certain Cree had a younger brother, a mere youth. The elder brother had one son. This little boy fell very sick. The man sought medical aid, employing people to use their power. (205|206)

Author’s translation: A Cree's younger brother is a youth. This elder brother, one is the number of his sons. Very much, he becomes sick, while he is small, this little man. Also 3rd person, (he) (the elder brother) employs people asking them strongly (to help).

If it is not already apparent, the approach used here is one of close translation, where the excerpts themselves tend to induce a memory or association. It is a literary method that allows for elliptical conversation surrounding a story while encouraging close

98 Recall that titles for narratives may have been afterthoughts provided by Bloomfield, or translations of phrases given by orators. These are not meant to be official or definitive titles, and so there may be room for re-titling given a new publication of Plains Cree Texts. One possibility would be to allow that some of the words remain in the original language. For example this story could simply be called 'pâkahkos'.

137 readings and careful attention to what meanings are intended by the orator originally.

In this opening the narrator introduces an older brother who has a younger brother.

The older brother has one son who becomes very sick. The youth who is sick or injured as a theme resembles a similar element found in Ojibwa Texts: Gaagigebinesikwe’s 'The

Youth Who died and Came Back to Life' and Plains Cree Texts: kâ-kîsikaw pîhtokêw -

Coming Day’s 'Man and Bear'. Continuing with sâkêwêw’s 'A Bony Spectre Abducts a

Woman,' at this point early in the narrative, three persons are mentioned so far: the older brother, the younger brother, and the son of the older brother. The older brother’s son is cured by his younger brother. After a time the younger brother finds a romantic partner who is from the same family as his elder brother. She and the younger brother have a child, and while gathering wood the younger brother's partner disappears. He then goes to find her and discovers her trail. After putting his feet in her footprints, exactly in each step for some distance the following occurs: kîtahtawê êkota ohci ê-itâpit at a certain point in time right there from (s/he) looks poti ôma tapiskoch pîsimwêyapiy that's it! this one just like (a) rainbow, sunbeam isinâkwaniyiw ômêskanaw aw iskwêw it looks that way (her) path this woman nayêwac ê-pimakotsihk somewhere along the way (as)(s/he) goes along in the air ohpîw awa oskinîkiw (s/he) goes up this young man nayêwac pimakotsin tapiskoch ê-pimihât somewhere along the way s/he goes along (in the air) just like (as though) (s/he) is flying

Bloomfield's Translation: Presently as he looked on ahead, lo, there like a rainbow looked the trail of that woman, as she had left the ground and floated through the air. The youth took off from the ground. He, floated through the air as though he were flying. (206|207)

138

Author’s translation: Suddenly, as he looks, from right there... That's it! Just like a rainbow or sunbeam it looks - the path of the young woman - as she goes along through the air. He goes up, this young man. Somewhere along the way he goes through the air just like he were flying.

Notice in this case how different the two translations are. The first one simplifies much of the subtlety of the original language while the second retains it. In either case, the woman had been taken up into the air, and the youth is able to see her path lit up as a rainbow or sunbeam. Whether others can also see her path is not stated, but it is possible that the youth because of his love for the woman is the only one that can see it, and may be one of the few, possibly the only one that could follow her. Shortly after this he comes across a spruce or pine tree lying at a slant: poti wâhyaw ê-ayat poti minahikwâhtikwa That's it! far away (when) he is there Look! (a) pine or spruce tree

ê-nawêyâskosiniyit êkota êsah kâh-nipâyat (as) it lays slanted right there must have (s/he) slept namôya tâpwê ê-nipât no it is true (s/he) (did not) sleep

ê-owîcimosit anihi kâ-sipwêhtahikot. (s/he) was a lover to that one that took (him/her) away

Bloomfield's Translation: Behold when he had gone a long ways, where a pine tree lay across the path, there she must have slept,-not that she really slept, but where she had taken for her lover him who had abducted her. (206|207)

Author’s translation: That's it, when he is far away, look! a pine or a spruce tree, as it lays slanted right there she must have slept. No, it is true she didn't sleep, but she was a lover to that one that took her away.

This at first doesn't resolve as funny until Adam Sâkêwêw says: "namôya tâpwê ê- nipât." Here the listener is led to jump to his or her own conclusions, and in the next breath sâkêwêw confirms: "ê-owîcimosit anihi kâ-sipwêhtahikot." Though uncertain it

139 seems likely that this is meant to be both funny and erotic, while invoking empathy for the character - funny because the realization of his partner having had sex on the slanted tree with her abductor dawns on the younger brother suddenly in a kind of double take. It is erotic because of the image of the tree slanted is all that is given, leaving the listener to imagine the scene on the forest path for herself or himself. The passage may also be meant to invoke the listener's empathy for the youth who after having risked travel such a great distance by flying, might be hurt and enraged upon realizing what had happened.

The younger brother follows the woman's path again into the air, coming down to the ground in a different place. He continues following her path and it leads into a pine woods where there is a large tent made from old leather rags, and a smaller one nearby which he enters. Inside is a pâkahkos, which Bloomfield translates archaically as a 'bony spectre' seated next to the younger brother's wife. A pâkahkos is a skeletal being often associated or appearing in this world during famine. Adam Sâkêwêw understands it as a being whose condition is normal where it lives in a side-world where death is as ordinary and ubiquitous as life is here. Edward Ahenakew relates a story told to him by a friend, Sam Cook:

I was traveling once in the northern bush with Sam Cook, of the Sekaskooch band… Sam told me his experience with Pah-ka-kōs (pâkahkos99)… "We were standing by our camp-fire, waiting for the water to boil in our tea-pail, and he pointed to a tall spruce on the other bank of the creek, black in the moonlight. “That is where Francois Ladouceur" and I saw Pah-ka-kōs (pâkahkos); he told me. 'We had been busy making camp, just like now, and we hadn't noticed him, until

99

140

suddenly we heard his cackling laugh and looked up. We saw him, right there, on a branch of that tree - a small creature, like a man in build, but so thin that he seemed all skin and bone. He had a dry stick in his hand, birch, about three feet long, and his queer little face was so full of malice that it angered me, though I felt fear too, and a kind of foreboding. I ran to the wagon for my rifle, but before I could reach it, that shrill cackling laugh came again, and when I looked I saw Pah-ka-kōs (pâkahkos) flying away, without wings. But first he had hurled that stick of birch, and it exploded with a sound like the report of a gun. And the Pah-ka-kōs (pâkahkos) was gone. (Ahenakew 1973 in Ahenakew, Buck (Eds.) 1995, 68, italics Ahenakew)

The pâkahkos in Cook’s story is similar to that in sâkêwêw’s. The pâkahkos in 'A Bony

Spectre Abducts a Woman' is the elder brother of another pâkahkos, the one who had stolen the younger brother's (human) partner. In this way the story crafts a kind of mirror image between the two sets of brothers foreshadowing future events. A struggle ensues over a bleached stick, understood to be a gun, likely the dead pâkahkos’ mirror- self of a gun from the living human side of the world, and the pâkahkos elder brother says to the human younger brother: "My fellow husband, let go of this my gun! I love this gun of mine! Take back our wife!" (206|207) This is funny in several ways, one in that the skeleton being refers to the younger brother as 'fellow husband'. It is possible that this is natural to the Cree language as a kinship term used in describing when a man may have more than one partner. As humour though it would resemble the presumptuousness of the young women who pursue the good looking youth in

Gaagigebinesi’s ‘Wemiisaakwaa, Clothed in Fur’ in Ojibwa Texts. In that story we remember that the young women spoke to the youth as though he had agreed to be in a romantic relationship with them, or that somehow his resisting their advances was as tragically sad as was his surrender inevitable. Here, the pâkahkos elder brother speaks

141 to the mortal younger brother as though they knew each other and were familiar friends, despite their obvious animosity. The pâkahkos trying to cajole the youth when there is no chance of doing so is funny in its own right as is the pâkahkos loving his gun, a bleached stick more than the woman. This later event makes fun of men's stereotypical tendency to value their guns to a point of embarrassing excess.

The pâkahkos attempts to bribe the youth by offering him future assistance in hunting and the youth refuses at which point the father of the pâkahkos brother appears and says: hêy ntawâsimisak kî-nîpawistâtowak hey my children they stood by one another

100 âta noton êkâ wiya êkotôwak iyinitow-âyisiyiniw ohtin iskwêw even though do not s/he that kind common human being take (a) woman nikî-itâw awa nikosis I said to (him/her) this one my son

101 manitowiwak iyin-ayîsiniyiwniw they have mysterious power (the) common human beings nikî-itâw mâna ... I said to (him/her) usually

102 ahci piko still, nevertheless, despite everything; more; in a different place naturally, solely, only, without a doubt kâ-tôtahk (...) ê-onâpêmiyit (s/he) does so (s/he) that had a man

100 Bloomfield marks this as an 'unknown word'.

101 This phrase is given by Bloomfield's footnote #4 in Plains Cree Texts, p.208 where he clarifies that the meaning of 'manitôwiwak iyin-ayîsiniyiw' is: 'As the powers of spirit beings seem to us unusual , so ours to them. He also relates that the same sentence occurs in William Jones Fox Texts (1907) p. 108 line 15.

102 Some words in both Cree and Anishnaabemowin have broad utility and acquire more specific meanings from the inferences of context. In this excerpt alone many of the possible meanings for words are iterated. In other cases the meanings have been narrowed down and one chosen to represent what the meaning inferred by the context. This is another reason illustrating that multiple translations are possible and that no definitive translation can exist. Rather, triangulating closer and closer meanings from translations made by different individuals might help one arrive at a better understanding of the original intended meanings. In this way multiple translations of a given text might be encouraged, as would reactions to the texts be interesting.

142

kâ-maskâhtwât awa nikâkêpâtisîm (s/he) robbed this one mine that is foolish

êkâ ê-tâpwêhtawit 103 negation (s/he) that agrees with (him/her)

Bloomfield's translation: "Alas my children have stood facing each other! Although often , 'Do not take a woman of common mortal men,' I said to my son; 'Of manitou nature are real men,' though I told him more than once, when I instructed him... robbing ... one who had a husband, this stubborn fool of mine, who does not heed my words. (208|209)

Author’s translation: "Hey, my children stood by one another. 'Do not take a common human woman,' I said to my son. The human beings have mysterious power.' I said to him usually. Despite everything, he robbed this one that (already) had a man, this foolish one of mine, who never agrees."

The pâkahkos father saying to his children that they should not be with women of the common mortal man, completes the mirrored effect when he follows this with: "Of

Manitou nature are real men." This means that the mortal humans have as much of a powerful mysterious nature in the minds of the pâkahkosik as do the pâkahkosik seem strange, powerful and mysterious in the minds of human beings. This resembles again

Gaagigebinesikwe’s 'The Youth Who Died and Came Back to Life" of the Ojibwa Texts in which the ancestors in their world react to the mortal youth as though he smelled bad, perceiving him as strange.

Also this passage is funny as the pâkahkosik parents are revealed as having difficulty getting their children to listen to them especially with regards to romance, and who they should or shouldn't partner with. The image of a skeleton spectre explaining

103 If 'êkâ' or 'namoya' negate a sentence, they do not always translate as a separate word but as part of the idea that follows. Here, 'êkâ ê-tâpwêhtawit' would be nonsensical as 'no, don't, not - (s/he) that agrees with (him/her)'. Bloomfield gives instead: 'who does not heed my words'. More closely this might read as '(s/he) that does not agree with (him/her), or s/he that is disagreeable.

143 his personal angst over being unable to get his son to listen to him is funny as it humanizes the pâkahkos in the midst of the natural fear one might have for a skeletal being. This humour hinges on the unexpected as one might not at first guess that the pâkahkos-like human beings have to deal with common irritations, annoyances, and communication difficulties.

The pâkahkos' son finally agrees to allow the human woman to stay while the driftwood weapon, the dead reflection of a gun from the living human world, remains with the human man who was once her partner. Now as the two, the pâkahkos and the human being become related as kin by the new romantic partnership, the pâkahkos wishes to do something for the human being who has lost his partner: hâ nitsiwâ kitatamihin ê-tâpwehtawat kôhtâwiyinaw there my brother I thank you (you) that has agreed with (him/her) our father

ê-atamihiyin nama wîhkâc ayîsiyiniw ka-kîhikon (as) you do well to me not ever (a) common human being will be lost to you

ê-âhkosihsîh kika-pimâchihêw when (one) is sick you will make (him/her) live ahpôh awasîs iskwêw nama wîhkâc ka-kîhikon kita-pimâtisihat maybe (a) child (a) woman not ever will be lost to you (as)(s/he) will live hâw niciwâ êkosi niya kitisi-miyitin there my brother it is true I I give to you

Bloomfield's translation: "There, Kinsman, I thank you for having lent ear to him who is now your father as well as ours. Because you have done me this favor, never shall mortal men be lost to you. Whenever one is sick, you shall restore him to life; be it a child, a woman, never shall he be beyond your power of restoring him to life. There, brother, this is my gift to you. (208|209)

Author’s translation: "There my brother I thank you, that you have agreed with him, our father. As you do well to me, never will a human being be lost to you. When one is sick, you will make him or her live. Maybe a child, a woman; never will one be lost to you as he or she will live. There my brother, yes, I give this to you."

144

The human man additionally is promised by the younger pâkahkos power in killing game, and then the father pâkahkos adds his own gift to this:

êkwa niya nikosis mahtahitowin kik-êsiyîhkâtên now I my son (the) give away feast you will call it

êwako niya kimiyitin this I I give to you pimiy asamihkan takosinyinani kikiwâhk (the) fat feed me (when) you arrive (at) your home

êkota cîkâ-wîkiyêk nîso môswak kimiyitin right there close by where you all stay two moose I give to you kitâsamiyin êkota ohci pimiy kitôtinaman (that) you (may) feed me right there from (the) fat you take from them

êkosi awa kiciwâm k-êtwêt so this one your cousin (as) he says

êkosi nîsta kitisi-miyitin so I also in such a way I give to you

Bloomfield's translation: "And I my son, Potlatch you will call it; this is what I give to you. Give me fat to eat, when you arrive at your home. Close by to where you dwell, two moose I give you, that you may feed me, and that you may take the fat from them. And even as your brother said, even such a gift I too am giving you." (208|209)

Author’s translation: "Now I my son, the Give Away you will call it - this I give to you. Feed me the fat when you arrive at your home. Right there, close by to where you all stay, two moose I give to you, that you may feed me, right there, from the fat you take from them. So as this one your cousin says, so I also in a similar way give to you."

In this story also is the reinforcement of kinship through establishing new relations - in this case as the man's partner becomes the partner of another, he becomes family with those that have taken her. The story also recalls Plains Cree Texts, kâ-kîsikaw pîhtokêw - Coming Day’s 'Man and Bear' wherein the youth receives a promise of future help from the bear, as does it resonate with Gaagigebinesi’s Ojibwe

Texts 'The Boy That Was Carried Away by a Bear' and Gaagigebinesi’s 'Wemisaakwa,

Clothed-in-Fur' Episode III. The idea of compensation here takes precedent as the new

145 pâkahkos brothers to the human man wish out of empathy to ease the loss of his partner. The lengths to which they go to ensure that he feels well after this loss are great: they give him the ultimate power to negotiate life for the dying or dead, and they pledge to him help in felling game, that is, the ability to deal out death at will. He becomes, because of having traveled so far outside of the world of human beings, able to have some commerce with the forces of this distant, reflective world. His new family requests of him that in coming years, he will share fat from his future kills with them.

This will go to help satisfy their extreme hunger, as they are skeletons after all. This little bit of fat would go towards filling out their bodies for a time, making them temporarily more human in appearance than one would expect of a pâkahkos.

This story ultimately says something about life and death - that they are reflective aspects of one another, both counter-intuitively vital in their own way. As inverse worlds, they exist as not completely separate - in rare circumstances, one might travel from one to the other. Side doorways between these worlds are always open, but the main road, as it were, travels in one direction from the world of the living to the world of the dead. But in another reading of the worlds, consider that the driftwood had a partner in the living world as a weapon of that world. That would mean that there is a simultaneous dead counter-self to all of the living identities, meaning there is a shadow world mirroring this one. This concept leads to the idea that the world is not singular or isolated but many-layered, each layer intertwined with the others through a series of maybe intermittent, maybe tenuous, maybe invisible but nonetheless possible paths of connection.

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3.7 Syllabics

Plains Cree Texts and Ojibwa Texts both use standardized roman orthographies.

This may not be the ideal state of publication for these materials as Cree and Ojibwe language learners often prefer materials presented in syllabics. Cree scholar Winona

Stevenson in Calling Badger and the Symbols of the Spirit Language: The Cree Origin of the Syllabic System (1999) relates that Anthropologist David Mandelbaum heard from

Fine Day104 in 1930 at Sweet Grass that he learned the writing from strikes-him-on-the- back, who learned it directly from mistanâskôwêw, Badger Call, or Badger Voice (20).

Winona Stevenson notes also that Wes Fineday, Fine Day's great-grandson told the same story on the CBC radio program Morningside decades later. Wes Fine Day said that mistanâskôwêw was from near Stanley Mission and was alive at least some ten or fifteen years before his grandfather was born in 1846.

What the older Fine Day had said is that mistanâskôwêw had been on the way to a mitê sacred society meeting with two singers when they came upon a bright light and all three fell to the ground. From the light a voice spoke his name. In the following days he became ill and finally seemed to have died. A wake was held for him yet after three days, when he was being wrapped in buffalo robes, those present noticed that his body was not showing the common signs of death. It was agreed that another day be allowed to pass before burial after which time it still did not show the expected signs of death.

104 It is often the case that the names of the dead are not spoken without deliberate thought and consideration to the need at hand. That has to do with the original Cree and Anishnaabe concept that understands all aspects of existence as having inherent personal autonomy. Speaking a person's name is done ideally with measured consideration of the person's personal freedom, whether living or gone on. As ancestors may remain with us as living presence they retain this respect. So in using the names of ancestors, there is attention given to the recognition that this is not done lightly. Because of the toxicity that comes from cults-of-personality observed even on a small scale in western contexts, it is likely that the practice of granting actual credit to a person's accomplishments as opposed to exaggerated credit has been reinforced among Cree and Anishnaabe people contemporarily.

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At this point, the old people present began to rub his back and chest, and after some time he awakened. He related that he had been to where he had met with manitowak, and they gave some foresight, and some insight about syllabics.

Winona Stevenson also notes that anthropologist Verne Dusenbury visiting

Rocky Boy in Montana in 1959, was told the story in 1959 by Raining Bird. Raining Bird had emphasized the practical power of writing. So the Cree origin of syllabics was known across Nations, and had been since prior to 1840. On the other hand, the colonial story of the origin of Cree Syllabics is that missionary who had worked on Ojibwe roman character writing systems at Rice Lake, Ontario invented the system, and set it to type in November of 1840, after working with maskêkowiyiniw. He had faced some resistance from the British and Foreign Bible Society in publishing his

Ojibwe work, although their directive was (and is) to make bibles and mission-writing available in as many languages as possible. Hudson Bay Company Factor Donald Ross brought Evans to work with his wife who was Cree, and the two worked on the script together from August 1840 to November. If Evans changed or improved the script at this time, he did not credit Ross' wife who would have rightfully been co-author. An acknowledgement as such would have been important, as would have been any recognition of Cree womens’ intellectualism at the time. He was also likely confused and somewhat at odds with the church that declined to publish his work even after directing him to do the work initially. It would seem that the Wesleyan Methodist

Church did not consult directly with the British and Foreign Bible Society prior to enlisting Evans to work at Rice Lake. Evans was of relatively low station in the church

148 and that may have contributed to the oversight. (All previous from Stevenson 1999, 19-

24)

Let us allow for the moment that both versions are true - that in addition to the influence of James Evans, mistanâskôwêw, through the conversations he had with manitowak, brought to the people an enhanced Cree writing. Holistic approaches to history are becoming more widespread as are they engaging in a way conventional history tends not to be. Chris Teuton’s recent book Cherokee Stories of the Turtle Island

Liars' Club : Dakasi Elohi Anigagoga Junilawisdii (Turtle, Earth, the Liars, Meeting Place)

(2012) understands Cherokee historical accuracy by relying on Cherokee elders’ narrative perception and consciousness. Cree writing existed before mistanâskôwêw though linguists would argue over whether it was a mnemonic, logographic, or ideographic system. These distinctions have to do with the way meaning is carried in symbols, and in some cases are abused as coded markers for civilized sophistication.

Anishnaabeg neighbors had long used a pictorial graphic system for scrolls (Dewdney

1975) and the number of formalized Mi'kmaw writing symbols used originally may have once been greater than a thousand (Schmidt and Marshall 1995) until the churches there burned the majority of the scrolls. Evans may have built upon what mistanâskôwêw had learned, acquiring some of that knowledge through Donald Ross' wife. They may have been additionally influenced by his knowledge of or

Nagari, an writing of India and Nepal that he had heard about from other missionaries. Sequoyah of the Cherokee Nation had authored a similar script around the same time, so some have suggested that the concept had been passed along

149 through the many Nations.

The Evans story is of a man working within the divisiveness and political disconnect extant within the Church hierarchy, while the Cree story recognizes syllabics as a gift that can help the people. The double vowel system in Ojibwe is useful because of its translatability to conventional keyboards, and because of people’s prior familiarity with roman scripts. Syllabics has a feel to it that is distinctively intuitive, and it takes very little room on the page. Also, because it originated from the people, with mistanâskôwêw and then later Evans and Ross' partner's assistance or otherwise,

Syllabics empower students of Cree and Anishnaabe language with a sense of 'This writing system is ours, and it may be very old.'

3.8 Plains Cree Texts Conclusions

What is so starkly beautiful about the impressions of Cree ancestral thought that come from these few stories has to do with their variation and presence. These stories are as a field of one thousand and more different wild flowers - that is they do not present a singular perspective, but a great many ways of understanding. These stories are strong in laughter, expansive kinship, eroticism, respect for animals, personal freedom, plot symmetry and patterning, parallelism and mirroring, along with careful descriptions of land. That the stories are so varied points to the center origin point of all this diversity - that individuals are free beings, that as community we may do well to support in the expression of their individuality. What we call community responsibility is in truth a natural desire to help one another that comes from living a good life

150 together. The Sundance embodies this as Edward Ahenakew relates in the 1995 edition of Voices of the Plains Cree (1973):

The Sun Dance... through it prayer is made for all people… A dancer may remember his own needs, or express his own thankfulness for personal blessing, but the dance itself is a prayer for all people. (Ahenakew 1973 in Ahenakew, Buck (Eds.) 1995, 46)

By this token, community responsibility is not something that need be taught if an individual has known true freedom for long enough that they have been able to discern how to live a good life in their own way, on their own terms. These ideas emerge not as mandates from the texts, but they come as the result of thinking about the stories for some longer time in which greater reflection is possible. All the stories suggest states of mind that encourage freedom and strength, and they do this in a way that is understated, unassuming and enjoyable.

As instances illustrating kinship in nêhiyawêwin and Anishnaabemowin narrative cohere, a kind of mutual reshaping of character begins to emerge as the defining quality of this kinship. That is, the meaning of one’s actions finds itself reflected and determined by the actions of all. Whether one is acting in accordance with one’s character is impossible to assess outside of the existence of a greater community of individuals. If the individual has found a way to live well, this is not enough if his people remain in difficulty. Martin Luther King Jr. described this grounding tenet of individual responsibility within community as follows:

All I'm saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am

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what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality. (King, December 18, 1963 speech given at Western Michigan University, http://www.wmich.edu/~ulib/archives/mlk/)105

The great leap of Cree and Anishnaabe narrative concepts of kinship is that which extends this necessary mutual creation, and sense of mutual dependent well being - I cannot be well, until we all are well - from the artificial confines of an isolated humanity, to all of existence, beginning most visibly with animals. That a friendship can exist between a man and a bear, suggests this greater vision. That a young person is generally the one to realize such potential, speaks of the propensity of the youth to see what others cannot. This quality seems to resurface, to flourish again as an individual reaches old age. It has to do with one’s understanding that blindness is irremovable from power, and only when an individual’s personal power is imagined by greater western society to be low, such as when one is young or old or sick or poor, is it possible to have a more honest outlook.

Plains Cree Texts delivers a diverse collage of impressions – images, events, people, places, little people, greed monsters, acts of heroism, animals transformation, illicit encounters - and though the stories are told by different narrators, they cohere; they make sense together. This may be explained by the narrators having participated in the collective development of a similar poetic style in a region, but it may also be explained by narrators frequenting similar paths in and through dream realities. One gets a sense that there is a kind of stability, a stay of interpersonal competition among

Plains Cree orators, because the fight is not with one another but with going beyond and

105 Full text and audio of many of Martin Luther Speeches may be found at http://www.mlkonline.net/)

152 coming back intact, carrying knowledge that is useful. Medicine journeys become especially difficult in times such as these when the western collective consciousness has reverted to false narcissism to cover widening uncertainties regarding the legitimacy of its own foundations. The result is that people are less likely to create the space allowing that dreams and dream related creative states carry knowledge.

One difficulty comes in separating the practice of creation from the image of the practice of creation. 'Poetry' for example invokes oftentimes a series of common missteps from new practicing poets, based on assumptions and stereotypes regarding what poetry is supposed to be. As a result new poets often sound affected, using fanciful language in place of honesty. With practice those initial hindrances, which may oftentimes come from prior social programming, fall away. The most important initial lessons that come from realizing one’s ability to work creatively have to do with a holistic reclamation of personal power. This personal power has often been lost in institutional life whether it be through public school, residential school, prison, the corporate workplace, or the factory. It is the selfsame personal power that Cree and

Anishnaabe community upbringing historically, and often contemporarily cultivates.

This personal power begins with treating a child with respect and kindness and it is complemented by giving the child skills and stories. This personal power seems to remain in individuals that have spent a good deal of time outside, or those that have learned to approach city environments as though they were natural spaces one can travel throughout freely. Stories that empower are ones that situate the child in a position of importance as many of the Plains Cree Texts and Ojibwa Texts do, as do they

153 indicate possibility - that the world is expansive, a place where much more than may be at first evident is possible. Old people become the ideal carriers of empowering stories because ironically they often possess little power; their bodies and minds may begin to fail, and they understand what it means to be in a position of less physical and social power, like a child. In addition they have the perspective of those who have lived long lives and have had time to think about their experiences. They also exist in a state that is near fundamentally changed existence as does a child, though each is traveling in opposite directions to that place; in other words, they may have the ability because of the nearness of the next world to experience special insight.

Cree and Anishnaabe ancestral stories provide a much needed counterbalance to any system of thought that brashly, unconsciously and numbly asserts the existence of a singular perspective, or a global 'common sense'. Common sense to one is not common sense to another and that conversation cannot happen without individuals and communities continuing to steward and cultivate unique perspectives. In short, a world without perceptive diversity is a dangerously narrow one, whereas a world rich in

âtayôhkêwina and aadizookewin is one that invites friendship, family and life. In Across

Borders Across Cultures (2010) poet and Cree speaker Duncan Mercedi explains:

I spent those early years learning from my kokum. The stories were both real and imagined, never knowing where reality and fantasy started or ended. As I got older, her stories would be about our families... (Mercedi in Depasquale, Eigenbrod and Larocque 2010, 125)

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In his kokum’s stories, the mixture of feelings Mercredi describes aligns perfectly with relational concepts of âtayôhkêwina and âcimowina, emphasizing as in much of Louise

Halfe’s poetry as well as in The Plains Cree Texts a harmony between the two.

Brody articulates the ultimate difficulty within the English language to describe concepts within this variable conceptual space comprehensively:

The Athapaskan hunter will move in a direction and at a time that are determined by a sense of weather (to indicate a variable that is easily grasped if all too easily oversimplified by the one word) and by a sense of rightness. He will also have ideas about animal movement, his own and others' patterns of land use ... But already the nature of the hunter's decision making is being misrepresented by this kind of listing. To disconnect the variables, to compartmentalize the thinking, is to fail to acknowledge its sophistication and completeness. (Brody 1981, 34)

Beginning with this same assumption when approaching the Plains Cree Texts, the texture and depth of the narratives open up into near limitless expanses. The European reduction of fables and folk tales to easy plots and one-line morals does not apply here, neither does the expectation, despite the Americanist anthropologists’ suggestion, that the stories constitute epic poetry of a remotely Homeric mode. That argument had its purpose at the time as a means of encouraging European-descent audiences to see

Indigenous people as human. Still that aggrandizing of epic poetry is a kind of master narrative that would seem to have no place in Cree or Anishnaabe authorship of nation.

Even the idea of nation seems grandiose when viewed with an attention to the kind of community-inclusive narrative knowing communicated in both Ojibwa Texts and Plains

Cree Texts, especially when viewed alongside current trends in Cree and Anishnaabe poetry.

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Ancestral stories often combine thought-challenge elements with humour and erotica, suspense and intrigue, yet the listener receives the narrative as a kind of seamless whole. The suggestion that the set-up for the listener is in any way contrived to manipulate a successful mentality takes the description of the practice too far towards teleology. Better to allow that narrative sensibilities and aesthetics develop so as to encourage the creation and innovation of new plots and themes that achieve all of the things stories commonly do, while characterizing Cree and Anishnaabe stories as additionally achieving a signature kind of mental acuity and individual mental autonomy. A well told story leads invariably to empowerment of the listener and teller both, to the kindling of conversation, and to the awakening of voice in others - it is a gift that renews itself as it passes between people, a kind of narrative medicine.

The stories expect that the human intellect is limited and that only the acceptance of a great sense of interrelationality will ever allow the individual the possibility of seeing past the walls of apparent realities. The stories of colonialism enforce a set of pseudo-realities or illusions which, because of their narrowness are extremely limited in describing actuality or approaching any kind of coherent or holistic truth. The old stories and the way they are carried in new non-essentialized embodiments teach mental agility of the kind that can allow for beneficial life and action with an uncertain and shifting set of conditions, also a kind of narrative medicine.

The ancestors of the narrative practice that led to Plains Cree Texts survived because they were able to work with the challenges that the land continually presented.

They could not have done this if, like the colonist, they saw themselves as apart from

156 those systems of uncertainty and change. The Plains Cree Texts assume kindness and mutual aid to be the default state of humanity. In these also, the ability to comprehend existence remains irreducible to a set of fixed axioms. Each individual in these old stories experiences a subjective part of an immense mystery, and each of their truths complement the others in revealing the depth, intricacy, horror and beauty of that mystery.

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4 maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina: Narrative Medicine in Louise Halfe’s The Crooked Good

4.1 Louise Halfe’s Vision

Louise Bernice Halfe, whose name translates roughly from nêhiyawêwin, Cree language into English as ‘Sky Dancer’, affirms in The Crooked Good that nêhiyâwiwin or

Creeness derives meaning through wâhkôhtowin106, that is through kinship or the contextual meaning given to one’s own life by one’s relations. In the previous chapter,

The Plains Cree Texts (1934) helped provide context for Cree ancestral approaches to knowledge and narrative while the poetry of the older stories and that of the nêhiyawêwin107 emerged as narrative medicine, that is, narrative imparting a greater propensity for healing, empowerment, internal balance and the ability to envision possibility to the reader or listener. The poems of Louise Bernice Halfe in The Crooked

Good (2007) similarly work as narrative medicine as do they comprise a renewal of ancestral narrative artistry.

Louise Halfe uses a spoken-tradition informed approach to writing poetry that subverts the boundaries between text and speech. Regarding the innovation of a storytelling informed poetics, Azalea Bariesses and Susan Gingell in their co-authored

106 The understanding of wâhkôhtowin that emerges herein combines that extensive relationality found in the Plains Cree Texts with that derived from understandings of ê-kwêskît’s conception of relations in The Crooked Good. The result is that wâhkôhtowin does not just mean family, kinship, or relationality, but has a distinctly Cree meaning, an understanding which can only come from situating it against a field of related concepts in nêhiyawêwin.

107 The dialect of Cree that appears herein is nêhiyawêwin or Plains Cree, as this is the dialect of the author Louise Halfe. This also works well within the context of talking about Leonard Bloomfield’s texts which are in the same dialect.

158 treatise “Orality, Spirituality and Female Kinship in Louise Halfe’s Blue Marrow,” share the following:

Halfe challenges the authority of the written colonial narrative by using oral forms and stories to evoke a tradition of oral history that has its own conventions... She does so, however, by hybridizing the oral and the written... (Barrieses and Gingell 2011, 69)

Part of this emulation of spoken ancestral narrative in Louise Halfe’s writing is actualized through her use of nêhiyawêwin and Cree language-bound poetics. Concepts within nêhiyawêwin âtayôhkêwina, or narrative artistry communicated using Cree language, in addition to contributing to the poet’s approach to writing may also be understood as guiding understandings of her work in this chapter. That is, as nêhiyawêwin

âtayôhkêwina inspires Louise Halfe’s poetry so does it provide much of the idea-related patterning necessary in experimenting with nêhiyâwiwin-specific approaches to understanding her work. As the development of literary theories comes from the contributions of broad communities of participants, this endeavor seeks only to offer a few modest ideas that may or may not help inform the broader conversation surrounding the development of nation-specific indigenist approaches to literature.

One idea that grounds this chapter is mamâhtâwisiwin or ‘the way of wonderment’, ‘looking at the wonderment of the mystery’, or ‘tapping into the mystery’108 which refers to the relationship with universal life that runs trhough all things as the branches and filamentary tributaries of so many of underground rivers. It means relating to the ultimately irreducible dream that all things are made of, a kind of

108 This definition comes from syntheses of ideas from Neal McLeod 2007 and Willie Ermine, 1995, 1998, 2007, tempering these with the explanation given by Shirley Williams, 2006 and explained in the introduction.

159 ever-changing interaction with wonder in all of its forms and faces. When one feels an affinity for a particular clearing in a woods, a certain river bank, or for one’s brother – they may be in that moment caught up in an awareness of or interaction with mamâhtâwisiwin. Individual lives acquire meaning through experiences of witnessing extended family within all existence and observances of shared common wâhkôhtowin, or kinship. wâhkôhtowin may be understood also as a certain momentary conformation of mamâhtâwisiwin, the layered interleaved currents of one’s relations. Cree scholar

Willie Ermine communicates his conception of mamâhtâwisiwin:

The Cree word mamâhtâwisiwin, for example, describes the capability of tapping into the 'life force' as a means of pro-creation. This Cree concept describes a capacity to be or to do anything, to be creative. mamâhtâwisiwin is a capacity to tap the creative force of the inner space by the use of all the faculties that constitute our being - it is to exercise inwardness... This energy manifests itself in all existence because all of life is connected, and all of life is primarily connected and accessed through the life force... For the Cree the phenomenon of mamatowin - mamâhtâwin refers not just to the self but to the being in connection with happenings. It also recognizes that other life forms manifest the creative force in the context of the knower. It is an experience in context, a subjective experience that, for the knower, becomes knowledge in itself. The experience is knowledge. (Ermine in Battiste, Barman (Eds.) 1995, 104. The first spelling of mamatowin is Willie Ermine’s from his original text; the second spelling is the same word rendered in accordance with the Alberta Elders Cree Dictionary convention) mamâhtâwan simply means that there is mamâhtâwisiwin’ present, active, or happening in some way. (McLeod, 2013) Here Willie Ermine explains by way of mamâhtâwisiwin that all things are interrelated and that we might do well to better understand our own being as situated within greater relationality. One effect of maintaining relation-awareness is to bring about balance in ones’ own life while informing one’s conception of responsibility and wâhkôhtowin or kinship.

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Mamâhtâwisiwin brought about through narrative consciousness engenders balance, and so describes one of the pathways by which narrative medicine can come about. In other words like water flowing in ebbs and tides throughout all, mamâhtâwisiwin is one wellspring narrative medicine draws on for its vitality.

Regarding narrative medicine, Louise Halfe’s writing addresses illness of spirit through wâhkôhtowin or kinship. Additionally, for Louise Halfe, poetics involves elements of pawâtamowin, or dream medicine in which the writing journey itself becomes medicine and the âtayôhkanak, the spiritual beings told of in the old stories - those mediated by mamâhtâwisiwin - cure, render empowerment, and impart knowledge.109 In this way, Louise Halfe’s poetics have to do with the idea that

âtayôhkanak or story-spirit-beings direct the will of the author. As many âtayôhkanak such as kistêsinaw, the elder brother being, reside within an extended family that includes ancestors, family and other knowledge-holding entities who inundate the land - animal and celestial spirits such as the stars, sun, moon, and the planets among them -

Cree poetics become not only relational, but relational in a way that incorporates the many-layered being of the land, and the idea of lifetime great friendship of the kind described of in kâ-kîsikaw pîhtokêw Coming Day’s ‘Man and Bear’ (in Bloomfield (Etd.)

1934, 164-189). In this story, after nursing an injured boy back to health, carrying him to water where he can drink, and finding him food, upon his departure, the bear vows to

109 Readers may find themselves initially drawn towards taking ‘writing as medicine’ to mean that writing acts as personal psychological therapy. Looking no further would be to allow a two dimensional, conventional understanding of medicine to stand. Instead, at every turn when we see ‘medicine’ we may do well to remember that ‘medicine’ in older Cree contexts refers not only to categorical physical or mental corrective medicine, but also to the ability for one to seek for understanding outside the current knowledge and to gain fundamental power from those journeys in perception. So ‘writing as medicine’ means not just the author using writing as therapy, but it means in the older Cree sense, finding power and knowledge outside of the confines of one’s own experience.

161 guard the boy for the rest of his life and to never be far away. Why does he do this? He simply likes the boy and they are friends. There is no other reason.

As ‘âtayôhkan’ is ‘story-spirit-being’ and ‘-win’ means roughly ‘the way of’ , and where ‘-a’ pluralizes the word-sentence, ‘âtayôhkêwina’ translates literally as the plural form of ‘the way of the story-spirit-beings’ and by convention simply as ‘storytelling’ or

‘telling a sacred story, traditional story or legend’ (Wolvengray 2001 combined with

LeClaire, Nancy, Cardinal, Hunter, and Waugh 1998). If ‘maskihki’ means ‘medicine’ then ‘maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina’ becomes ‘storytelling, story-craft or narrative arts as medicine’, or simply ‘narrative medicine’. The specific signature medicine of Louise

Halfe’s poetry has to do with how it binds the knowledge of the ancestors with the knowledge of current relations. It would not be beyond the pale to suggest that these are one and the same. That is, in many ways the people now are the ancestors. The ancestors, considering they have passed on aspects of their perspectives to current generations in many ways continue to exist through these ideas, and through their presence in the land. They still offer guidance to many and they still seem very much present in the lives of individuals.

References to wâhkôhtowin, âtayôhkêwina, âcimowina, âcimosowina, maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina, nêhiyawêwin, nêhiyâwiwin begin to sketch out the beginnings of this experimental indigenist approach to Cree literature, the grounding premise being that that theoretical approaches to texts may rely on ideas resident in nêhiyawêwin,

Cree language itself, to shape the approach to Louise Halfe’s work. Because terminology such as ‘indigenist literary theory’ may sound overly-complicated from the

162 perspective of many community members, and because this effect could alienate interested persons, it may make just as much sense just to call it a language-based way of looking at poetry, or a Cree poetics. It is the hope of this inquiry that each interested reader or listener may find inspiration in this method insofar as he or she may wish to formulate her or his own unique Cree language based approach to texts. If it were not already patently clear, the motivation for this is to bolster momentum towards the creation of indigenist intellectual self-determination - itself a part of a broader movement towards first peoples’ autonomy.

Among Cree writers, Tomson Highway and Louise Halfe alongside Cree-Métis writer Gregory Scofield may be some of the first in print to show their readership how they observe nêhiyawêwin ideas within the language, though certainly authors such as

Duncan Mercredi who, as a fluent Cree speaker writing at a time when publishers of poetry seemed only interested in printing works in English, uses his own version of this approach throughout his work as in: Dreams of the Wolf in the City (1992), Wolf and

Shadows : Poems (1995), and The Duke of Windsor: Wolf Sings the Blues (1997), emphasizing the ‘language of the street’ (Mercredi in Depasquale, Eigenbrod, LaRocque

(Eds.) 2010, 126). Duncan Mercredi in ‘Wachea’ intimates something of his experiences with nêhiyawêwin with his grandmother, and although he is writing in English he illustrates how he manages to translate something of how it feels to speak Cree and to be curious about the language itself:

…a greeting of well-being coming from the eastern door, and traveled along the rivers and the trails now covered in gravel and asphalt, making its home on the flatlands of the prairies, riding the waves of the lake, mingling with all those other greetings of well-being and safe travels, old

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words, older than the land, greetings carried from the stars… Unable to shake free of these words, older than this land, we glance into the shadows looking for their origin, but the picture is shrouded in mist and the voice is but a whisper… (Mercredi in Depasquale, Eigenbrod, LaRocque (Eds.) 2010, 123)

Similarly, among nêhiyawêwin speakers and language-learners, the meaning of words and related concepts is often contemplated in great depth and consulted for insight into ancestral thinking. Conversations surrounding the origin and meaning of words then guide the formulation of approaches to renewing life and thought-ways. In short, elders and those interested in Cree revitalization have looked to the language itself for guidance in reconstruction and renewal throughout history.

Louise Halfe has written to date three volumes of poetry: Bear Bones and

Feathers (1994), Blue Marrow (two editions - 1998, 2004)110, and The Crooked Good

(2007). While each of the three stands alone as separate works, and while each smaller work within each of the three volumes also works independently, she feels that they cohere as a single epic poem. (University of Alberta Interview Series, Writing Task Force,

October 12, 2005).111 This compares to the writing of Marvin Francis, a poet whose many works interleave, each seeming episodic in an ever revolving single long poem.

Moreover, The Crooked Good continues and retells parts of Blue Marrow, which in turn continues and retells aspects of Bear Bones and Feathers. Though each poem within these books may be read separately, of Blue Marrow Louise Halfe has said: ‘[it] needs to

110 There are two editions of Blue Marrow. The first, printed in 1998, was reworked and edited for the second edition in 2004.

111 In parallel, at the Calgary Spoken Word Festival (April 2011) Louise Halfe referred to Rolling Head as an epic poem.

164 be read cover to cover’. (Ibid, 2005) while in addition each piece may be understood as a transitional form of the authors’ âcimosiwina, her life experience stories and the life stories of her relations.

Through impressionistic semi-autobiographical re-renderings of Louise Halfe’s

âcimosowina, life experience stories in The Crooked Good, impressions of mamâhtâwisiwin come into resolve. This reinforces the idea that mamâhtâwisiwin practices result in an awareness of broader wâhkôhtowin or kinship in the conventional sense of ‘all our relations’. wâhkôhtowin112 or relationality extends beyond ayisiyiniwin, humanity, meaning that all things, human beings included, exist as changing expressions of the same enigmatic universal currents relatable through mamâhtâwisiwin. The inherent oneness of humanity with the land can be seen in the following passage as the dreamers themselves appear alongside the living being of Rib Woman, the sweat lodge:

At dusk the dreamers sat in the large roundness of Rib Woman. A bird choir, bees, frogs sang. After bannock, stew, berries, water, the choir followed the going-away. (Halfe 2007, 71)

The preparation of the lodge is enhanced by the contextual meaning given to the experience by the land and family, in this case the presence of the songs of animals and good food. This confluence of individuals’ unique currents of or relationship to enigmatic mamâhtâwisiwin creates unique wâhkôhtowin, family or relationality.113 By

112 Written Cree convention uses no capitalization at the beginning of sentences or for names. This has a poetic effect of making writing sound less grandiose and more direct in accordance with nêhyawiwin principles of economy of speech, and a balanced understanding of relations.

113 That we may each understand mamâhtâwisiwin to an equal degree in our own unique ways means that we each have characteristic strengths that complement those of another. That none of us knows mamâhtâwisiwin in the

165 aligning impressions of family and personal life experience with Cree ancestral concepts,

The Crooked Good reinvigorates the old ways, meanwhile both forwarding and foretelling the continued restoration and empowerment of the people.

Similarly, Louise Halfe in The Crooked Good speaks of extended family, establishing the individual life as deriving meaning from an ever-changing map of one’s relations. This is very similar to the Nguni Bantu concept of ubuntu Nelson Mandela and

Desmond Tutu speak of which means roughly: “I am what I am because of who we all are.” (Rich, 2013). Like a constellation, each individual derives her or his beauty from the beauty of the whole, like all of the stars shining together to form a single pattern.

Throughout Bear Bones and Feathers, Blue Marrow, and The Crooked Good, this concept of wâhkôhtowin, or relationality, binds the narrative as does âtayôhkêwina, sacred story

- in this instance the story of cihcipistikwân, Rolling Head. The âtayôhkanak, story spirit- beings, and wâhkôhtowin, relationality revitalize the author as she revitalizes them. The one in turn helps the other, and the âtayôhkan consciousness that results allows for future nêhiyawak, for Cree people to reorient life and perspective. That is the pivot of

Louise Halfe’s narrative medicine - she participates in maintaining âtayôhkan consciousness, a field of consciousness as it were, where ideas leading to balanced living are free to sustain.

absolute (it is possible that it does not exist as an absolute, knowable, or in any way static being) means that none of us (including those relations beyond ayisiyiniwin, humanity) have any greater or lesser inherent value than any other.

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4.2 How Bear Bones and Feathers and Blue Marrow Inform The Crooked Good

Bear Bones and Feathers (1994) begins with a dedication to both the author’s brother and daughter along with an acknowledgement: "To my Grandmothers and my

Grandfathers and to those who've danced before us." She follows this with:

"Nitipêyihtênan ôhi acimôwina - We own these stories. The Marrow." This sets the tone for her writing through The Crooked Good, which could be seen together with Blue

Marrow as the continuation of a single, ongoing narrative poem-prayer. In acknowledging 'those who've danced before us' she reminds the reader that the ancestors are not so distant as they might seem, that they were and are people who dance(d); in other words, they were and continue to be family. They continue helping in this life and their doing so is as ordinary as the other mysteries of existence in all of their paradoxical wonder. The stories then belong to the people in that they are not just the bones, but the vital regenerative force in Cree life. In addition the stories need not be fixed or final, but like marrow are regenerative and ever-new, changing and refreshed by new yet informed-by-the-tradition innovators. Of this Louise Halfe has said, “…we make the old into the new,” (Halfe, Interviewed by Ian Ferrier at the Words

Aloud 4 Spoken Word Festival in Durham, Ontario, Canada, November 2007) and "…I rewrite legends." (Halfe, University of Alberta Interview Series, Writing Task Force,

October 12, 2005). Accordingly, to best respect the stories is not to preserve them in stasis, but to nurture them into new growth, into new possibilities, as was always done.

Speaking of The Crooked Good and sacred story Louise Halfe has said: "It has spoken again in The Crooked Good where they tell the story in a different way. Because we are

167 always taking the old and making it into the new." (Ibid, 2005) Accordingly, tradition is not static or fixed but has always been vibrant, dynamic and changing. In this way, the poet invokes âtayôhkanak or sacred story beings, those who people âtayôhkêwina, sometimes translated as ‘legend’. That is, she offers new voice and expression to

âtayôhkanak through âtayôhkêwina.

Bear Bones and Feathers highlights both bear medicine, bones (or foundations), and feathers, granting an additional lightness to the narrative fabric. Recall again the stories involving bears from Plains Cree Texts, such as kâ-kîsikaw pîhtokêw Coming

Day’s ‘Man and Bear’ (in Bloomfield (Etd.) 1934, 164-189). Bear Bones serve as the medicine and ideas of ancestors, while the feathers imply a kind of lightness - the insistence that resilience comes not from stubbornness, but from a natural love for life.

Appreciation for existence comes from the kindness shown to an individual by her or his family. This in turn represents that wellspring of vitality targeted by residential school.

As Louise Halfe went to Blue Quills114 residential school, healing becomes a priority, but this is a healing not of a broken individual but of one that has always sustained injuries and has continuously healed from them.

The first sub-narrative (poem, prayer, dream) of Bear Bones and Feathers, 'Bone

Lodge' binds land with kin: "I sleep with sihkos. In the fog she untangles my braids."115 In this case sihkos, ‘weasel’, represents a person's name, as does it refer possibly to a kind of a living potential akin to that possessed by the kistêsinaw, the elder brother beings.

114 Blue Quills was among the first residential schools to come under Indigenous control in 1970.

115 This and the following line citations are all from Halfe, 1994 page 3, and reiteration of the citation is avoided so as to allow for ease in reading.

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Elder brother actions in older stories sometimes were carried out by different animals.

In older eastern seaboard Abenaki traditions the raccoon does things similar to the one from nothing being, a similar person to the Cree kistêsinaw – importance may not so much lie in the name or form the being takes, but in the nature of the active conceptual and emotional space created within the life of the listener, audience or reader by that being. Animals also play a role in healing:

They carry between them a blanket folded and tied at each end. An old man takes it by the two ends and puts it right in front of the doctor who is stripped to his napkin. He sits up and ties his hair behind him. They burn sweet grass. He unties the blanket, there is a little snake there. He catches it by the neck -- holds it up and strokes it 4 times. "Keep quiet now. They are asking you to pity the sick man -- They are asking for your help to try and do something." The snake becomes quiet -- does not stick out its tongue. He holds it by tail and head. They take 2 drums - he sings - passes snake over sweet grass smoke - sings and shakes - you can see sweat running from his body. (Coming Day interviewed by Mandelbaum, 1935, IH-DM 77, transcript p. 1)

From this it is clear that animals in healing are not to be taken for granted and it is their will at times that may be the key to the cure. In other words it is the favor of this snake granted to the sick man that will determine the outcome of the illness.

For the narrator’s hair to be untangled by sihkos, this lets the reader know that the land and animals, along with old stories and the active potential carried by them will matter to this narrative, that these appear present and critical. This is reinforced in the next passage with the mention of the robin: "I chant with Robin, the shawl dance of iskwew." The bird then as a partner in a dance becomes a source of kinship providing the momentum for the shawl dance, and again the animals as a part of the land emphasize the importance of the land - situating human beings as a participative nation,

169 one of the many equal nations, or expressions of askiy, the land - a single thread in the greater fabric of askiy. Askiy itself is made up of component threads of all of the animal, plant and other nations.116

Continuing, the speaker relates: "I weave with spider, the journey's ahcâhk."

The ahcâhk, soul or essence of a being, has a kind of natural reason inherent to it, along with an independent will and agency, imparting to the journey these qualities also. The journey becomes a conversation between these two vital forces – the individual’s ahcâhk and the journey’s ahcâhk. In this sense the individual will feel as if the journey at times leads to valuable teachings in an unexpected way, rather than in a way determined by that individual controlling the direction of events.117

The speaker continues further: "I'm meat and bones, dust and straw, caterpillars and ants, hummingbird and crow." In other words, the human being comprises a functional part of the living systems and families of askiy, the earth. In a sense askiy, the earth is like a living body, human beings along with the animals, plants and others making up the webworks of wâhkôhtowin, of relations that make up that body. This creates a strong feeling of interconnectedness that the individual may have with his or her surroundings, creating both a sense of familiarity, welcome and company when out

116 Here, ‘nation’ could be substituted by kisê-wâhkôhtowin, or great map of one’s relations of beings if one were seeing a more accurate definition.

117 An adoption of this understanding means that the individual will not see unexpected turns in a journey as mistakes or digressions. These instead but will be more likely acknowledged as part of a greater story whose meaning may not be understood until after the fact if at all, and that this is both expected and acceptable. In other words, not everything need be understood in entirety as long as relationships with land and people are maintained with good feeling along the way.

170 in the land.118 In the final line of “Bone Lodge”, "Of these I know in the bones of the lodge", the lodge refers to the sweat-lodge, and also in parallel to the house of power, protection and vitality created by writing new life into these old âtayôhkanak, old story spirits. It may also refer to one’s family of relations, of which the âtayôhkanak are part and greater wâhkôhtowin, greater community.

In Blue Marrow, the marrow symbolizes stories and the lodge equates to the human skeletal structure. According to this understanding, the body is the lodge - a house for stories. In ‘Haunted Prairie: Aboriginal Ghosts and the Spectres of

Settlement’ (2006) Warren Cariou argues that:

Louise Halfe's book-length poem, Blue Marrow, is marked in several ways by the legacy of the Ghost Dance. Blue Marrow is not only a poem but also an elaborate ceremony, designed to call the spirits of the Grandmothers to come forth and tell their stories in order to heal the present generation. Much of the poem is narrated by these unnamed ancestral spirits, who recount their stories of the settlement of Canada's northwest. As the title indicates, ancestral bones are a governing motif of the poem: they seem to infuse the very landscape with the presence of spirits. But in Blue Marrow these bones are not buried, forgotten ones; instead the poem is an insistent attempt to remember them, to call them into the world of the present…These bones are not simply reminders of past crimes, chilling spectacles of violence. Instead, they also act as guides, moving the author's hand on the bone-pen that writes the poem in blue marrow - that is, ink. (Cariou in the University of Toronto Quarterly 2006, 731)

If our bodies are the recombined result of our ancestry, and our bodies have changed in response to the experiences of those that have gone before us, then our bodies house those life experiences. Those stories are carried in our physical being. That is not to say

118 A person who understands herself or himself as part of the land will feel more at home and comfortable when out on the land. Extrapolating this to the urban jungle, the same should hold true as the city, although human influence is very present there is still a part of the land. That is to say that Cree and Anishnaabe thought does not decrease in relevance in urban areas. Rather it retains the same power in whatever setting.

171 that the individual is in any way confined by the stories of the past, or the experiences of those that have gone before, but that these experiences provide the foundation for the creation of new narratives. To one who associates bones with the familiarity of ancestral voices, the ‘bone lodge’ means both protection and home.

Louise Halfe's second poem ‘Ghost Dance’ begins with a quote from Dee Brown's

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: "I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass. Bury my heart at Wounded Knee." This quote Brown takes from Stephen Vincent Benét's poem

‘American Names’ (1927) in which he says he has "…fallen in love with American names". The poem emphasizes the beautiful strangeness of names that come from so many backgrounds, a kind of celebration of diversity. Benét ends the poem with: "You may bury my body in Sussex grass, You may bury my tongue at Champmédy. I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass. Bury my heart at Wounded Knee." In other words, he is content to be buried in places with these names, and that as his body disperses across the land, where the essence of his being will go is beyond human knowledge. These are fitting lines with which to begin ‘Ghost Dance’. The first passage brings in pâhkahkos, or hunger spirit, of the same kind found in Plains Cree Texts in sâkêwêw’s - He Come into

View’s ‘A Bony Spectre Abducts a Woman’ (in Bloomfield (Etd.) 1934, 204-211), sâkêwêw’s - He Come into View’s ‘Crooked-Moccasin and the Bony Spectre’ (in

Bloomfield (Etd.) 1934, 212-218) and kâ-kîsikaw pîhtokêw - Coming Day‘s ‘The Youth who was a Bony Spectre’ (in Bloomfield (Etd.) 1934, 218-253):

They are in the hills, in bush and prairie clattering shattered bones

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chattering laughing in the dark. (Halfe 2007, 4)

These beings, âtayôhkanak in their own right, inhabit a parallel world where all is bones and rot, but this is normal to the pâhkahkosak. In their skeletal forms, they remind people of the dangers of starvation and hunger and that such dangers are always present, no matter how fair-seeming and secure ones’ surroundings may be at the moment. In the context of bones and marrow, that shattered bones people the land, reinforces in the mind of the reader the connection between land, bones, marrow and the stories springing forth or otherwise coming out of the land itself in a very direct and literal way. The âtayôhkanak, including the pâhkahkosak are as much a part of the land as anything and in many ways could be said to be part of its encompassing wâhkôhtowin, or kinship, even part of its own awareness or consciousness.

Blue Marrow informs The Crooked Good by establishing a foundational sense that despite its hurt and pain, the past will be met with a resolve to move forward.

Warren Cariou articulates this as follows:

There are many other disparate voices in Blue Marrow, some of which offer advice and traditional knowledge in addition to stories about the fur trade and settlement. And though many of the stories are horrific in their events, they seem clearly intended not to frighten readers - even those who may be settlers - but rather to make readers think, what are we going to do now? The wounds described by Halfe's spirits have not been avenged, or given the remedy of justice, or given the means for healing. They are simply presented as problems that have never been adequately addressed. (Cariou 2006, 732)

Along these lines, Louise Halfe authors her own nêhiyâwiwin informed maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina, or narrative medicine, and in doing so heals herself and those

173 around her though her art. Art, as a relative of dreaming, may involve the power of a pawâkan, pawâtâkan, and may be in truth a kind of manitowatâmowin, or inspiration of spiritual or otherwise mysterious power. In all of these cases art has the potential to address illness and imbalance. When one practices creative speech or writing, and let us recall that in the context of literary nationalism Cree and Anishnaabe literature this includes both speech and writing, she or he will begin to awaken her or his voice, both in a literal sense and if we allow for the moment that finding voice means finding a means to express one’s true nature, being or self. Bear Bones and Feathers alongside

Blue Marrow illustrates clearly that the awakening of voice and ones’ truest nature defy colonial hypnosis not by reaction, but through independent pathfinding and the will to travel in ones’ own chosen direction.

4.3 wâhkôhtowin and askiy - Relation and Earth

ê-kwêskît, ‘Turn Around Woman’ is the name of the speaker of The Crooked

Good. ê-kwêskît abstractedly and impressionistically incorporates the âcimosowina, the life experience stories of those close to or known by the author. ê-kwêskît represents a narrative gathering place, a drawing together of the âcimosowina, the life experience stories of those in Louise Halfe’s family and wider community. ê-kwêskît reflects Louise

Halfe in some ways but she sometimes incorporates more than the author alone, her voice becoming the voice of other Cree women in Louise Halfe’s family, her experience intimating theirs.

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In The Crooked Good ê-kwêskît is told by her mother: “wâhkôhtowin was a mess… the Old People paid the hunters for rabbits, ducks, deer, fish. It was never like this.” (115) The sharing and reciprocity that characterized the old ways had undergone a change for the worse, replaced by greed. Continuing she says: “Your uncles say we don’t come from animals - they’ve forgotten wîsahkêcâhk, his shifty ways. Wolf Boy - mahihkan.119 They don’t know nothin’. Pretend they have mamâhtâwisiwin – special powers.” (116) In short, If they are to continue, the old ways must undergo a rejuvenation, along with a directed reform. This problem is what The Crooked Good addresses.

In addition, ê-kwêskît’s mother reinforces older ancestral ideas of ‘all our relations’ wâhkôhtowin, those preferencing the role of animals as being the precursor abstracted forms of human beings, in an earlier age of askiy, or the earth, also the universe. Suspend for a moment a positivistic understanding of the history of the universe and allow that along with the formative stages of askiy’s coming into being, the rules and laws governing that creation also may have changed over time. This would mean that earlier ages of existence would have allowed for all kinds of possibilities. If one’s wâhkôhtowin, or relationality, goes beyond ayisiyiniwin, beyond humanity to include animals (even to allow that humanity originated with animals) plants and other aspects of askiy, the land, then what happens to askiy happens also to the individual. If the achâk, the soul of the individual equals the achâk of one’s greater community including askiy, the land, then the well being of the land becomes of critical, personal

119 Wolf Boy is kistêsinaw, or elder brother’s brother.

175 importance to every individual in this broad wâhkôhtowin, this expansive interwoven patterning of kinship.

Many of the stories present in Plains Cree Texts reveal a reality wherein the strength of the relationship between askiy, earth and ayisiyiniwin, humanity within relationality collapses into a single identity. In other words we are not only of askiy, we are askiy.120 Louise Halfe’s wâhkôhtowin-pimâtisiyâcimowina the story of the life of her relations in The Crooked Good supports this understanding. Passages relating the land to a human person reflect this conception as well: consider that ê-kwêskît’s grandmother, whom she refers to as nôhkom ‘my grandmother’, her voice: “…whistles winter winds… painted thunder in the summer sun” (62). Similarly aspin, Gone for

Good, ê-kwêskît’s mother’s voice ‘…was sheets of forest rain’ (27). In ‘Gave My Name” in The Crooked Good, cihcipistikwân, Rolling Head relates that she is ‘âtayôhkan’ and that:

I’m earth. Born each moon, Waxing and waning…(Halfe 2007, 124)

The result of the knowledge gained from the narrative medicine journey of Bear Bones and Feathers through Blue Marrow and The Crooked Good has to do with the understanding of self losing resolution amidst askiy, the earth or universe, amidst these

120 In Christian terms this unity of askiy universe and the individual has caused consternation among the clergy since the 18th century as it circumvents all ecclesiastical authority (each is as close to understanding the mystery of existence as another) thereby removing the need for a church. If there is no division between the individual and the sacred, no profane human world existing in opposition to a sacred existence, then humanity becomes sacred and the ordinary wondrous. In this instance no clergy is required to bring man closer to God. In Christian terms if sacredness is God and humanity is sacred, then we each are made up of God inherently and there is no need for anyone to bring us closer to God/sacredness. This conversation appears in brief in The Journals of Charlevoix and is reflected in Gilfillian: Once a native clergyman under the supervision of Gilfillian, a Jesuit attempting conversions of the Red Lake Ojibwe, stated to the latter “Do you not know, that the Indian thinks his body God?” (Gilfillian 1901, 91)

176 greater changing and revolving (like the moon) patterns of existence. ê-kwêskît’s identity in the Crooked Good seems to dissolve into askiy and related mamâhtâwisiwin, while at the same time she gains from these her greatest sense of personal identity. ê- kwêskît’s narrative medicine practice similarly reveals her own importance as a part of a greater community, her identity and sense of individuality finding its origin in expansive wâhkôhtowin relationality.

In addition, a kind of rebalancing mashkikîwin, or medicine - maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina, or narrative medicine unifies all of Louise Halfe’s work. These narratives have to do with dreaming, willing, coaxing or singing oneself and by proximity one’s community together after great trauma. In regards to this, song as medicine has many faces. Song for one, has the ability to create emotional states not otherwise possible in speech. Unique emotional states may catalyze different kinds of experience, which in turn may enhance an individual’s ability to seek knowledge, power or healing.121 Stair-step or cascading emotional states can sometimes better arise from lyricism than from mandate, rendering song or poetic writing significantly non-obtrusive ways of teaching or sharing experience.

In a similar way a practitioner of narrative medicine, whether a storyteller, traditional healer, or an author of the written word, may create a series of small, gradual steps, incremental vision-to-action, creating momentum towards the

121 Song also has the ability to create thought-forms that approximate desired states of being, intermediate steps to improved well being. The creation of many coincident smaller envisioned possibilities create momentum that would be impossible otherwise, much like the combined efforts of many people lifting together can move a stone that would be impossible to move with a singular effort. Envisioning possibilities in a gradual stepwise fashion in other words creates a cascading effect where conceptual spaces are created each in turn ahead of the other, creating space for actual states of being to realistically move into.

177 attainment of a desired state of being. This occurs throughout Louise Halfe’s writing, and with a lyrical aspect to her verse, it is as though the speaker ê-kwêskît were, in a sense, singing herself into a state of improved well being, or singing herself together – not only stopping at base healing but going past this towards the gathering of enhanced power and knowledge.

In The Crooked Good, as ê-kwêskît sings herself into well being, she regains strength amidst the fallout of residential school, removal122, and continued forms of colonialism seen and unseen. During this struggle, the importance of her family comes into stark resolution, as does the meaning and nature of her broader wâhkôhtowin, her broader interwoven map123 of relations:

There is no stillness in the autumn rain. Nôhkom carried her smoke in her apron, Peppermint on the breath of the lunar moon. Mosom traces syllabics, through my fingers And my Beloved? We are his earth. (Halfe 2007, 63)

From this comes a sense of expanse, though of a kind brought about by a series of grounded relationships within the family. “We are his earth” suggests that ê-kwêskît’s family has become of great importance to her lover, and it means that they do not dissociate from the universe, but understand that they exist within it - a part of askiy. In

122 The removal of Indigenous people in Canada to reserves happened later in the Western provinces than the removal of Indigenous people in the United States to reservations. For that reason that era in Canada is not given the formal name of ‘Removal’. In the US ‘removal’ is often understood to have begun in the 1830’s though the colonial abuses of Indigenous people leading often to exodus had been happening as early as the opening of the 17th century in North America – the Blackhawk War for example occurred in 1832.

123 Referring to a map of one’s relations, relationality exists in a constant state of change as the land itself changes continually. So if the metaphor of a map pertains, then it is a map continually altered to reflect states of change in the greater map of relationality.

178 other words the people are not of the land only - the people are the land. The one is indivisible from the other, each sharing and shaped by the same mysterious universal mamâhtâwisiwin. When realized outwardly this can embolden others, in this case, ê- kwêskît’s lover, who himself over the years has become an essential part of her own personal healing and empowerment.

In ‘The Family’ (13) the author begins to tell the life experience stories, the

âcimosowina, of ê-kwêskît - Turnaround Woman’s relations. These stories speak of ê- kwêskît’s grandmother, nôhkom (meaning ‘my grandmother’), her mother aspin, (‘Gone for Good’) her father, wâpistikwân, (meaning ‘white head’, referring to his white hair) her older sister, Three Person, her younger sister, (youngest of the three) wâpan

(meaning ‘dawn’), her brother, ospwâkan (meaning ‘pipe’), and her brother Mechanic.

“We are nôhkom’s necklace” (52) means that the family as it surrounds ê-kwêskît also makes her beautiful. The same could be said for all, that each in the family makes up part of the necklaces of the others - that they all make one another beautiful as they surround each other. This represents the truest sense of wâhkôhtowin, of relation that the author conveys in The Crooked Good, much in accordance with the sentiment conveyed in the aforementioned poem ‘My People’ by Langston Hughes. From this it may be gleaned that we derive our meaning as individuals from our surrounding relations; the map of our souls, in other words, is the same as our map of relations.

Of ê-kwêskît’s close relatives, she says they are: "A family that slipped into each other's skins. A gift that came to us from our ancestors." (14) The experiences of one became vitally relevant and meaningful to the lives of the others. In a similar kind of

179 shared identity, ê-kwêskît refers to the sun as nôhkomis, ‘my grandmother’ combining the image with that of her human grandmother, whom she refers to as nôhkom - a shortened, more endearing form of ‘nôhkomis’:

Nôhkomis rose high, filled the forest lodge. Showed many pages of her face: awâsis êkwa nôtokwêsiw. She arrives nightly, this bleeding sun… Stretches at dawn, shifts her wrinkles to close one sun (the other a wide-eyed heaven). My nôhkomis. (Halfe 2007, 79)

In this way aspects of askiy, of the land, become relations. The moon is referred to as nôhkomis ‘little grandmother’ – in the evening and ‘awâsis’ a child, while at night it becomes ‘nôtokwêsiw’, an old woman. The sun lives a life in a day, at the same time becoming interchangeable with nôhkom, the shortened version, of nôhkomis, ê-kwêskît uses to refer to her grandmother. The two blend so that the sun and nôhkom in some ways become one - the ‘bleeding sun’, red in color comes at the sunset, and ê-kwêskît’s grandmother visits in person, every dusk at the same time, each bringing their own warmth and light. The expansive feeling of togetherness that comes from this association binds ê-kwêskît to the love of her family and askiy, to the land at the same time in the same way.

As an extension of family through wâhkôhtowin, askiy means that ê-kwêskît is never alone when on the land, but is always surrounded by relations. These human ancestors, manito, and the achâkyak, the souls of animals, trees, plants, stones, and askiy, make her beautiful as they surround her, and she makes them beautiful in

180 return.124 Ever-alive in addition to generous, askiy, the land, the universe itself surrounds ê-kwêskît, making her beautiful through a wâhkôhtowin reflective of that present in her human family. In nêhiyawêwin, Cree language, nêhiyâwak, human beings are part of askiy, the land or cosmos, so that it is natural and expected when a consciousness of askiy-wâhkôhtowin, or land relationality merges with ê-kwêskît’s understanding of human family wâhkôhtowin.

4.4 Realistic Poetics: tâpwêwin, debwewin (slight return)

Of poetry, Louise Halfe has said that of all the different genres of writing she has experimented with, it is the one most natural to her person, and that everything she writes is in some way touched by poetry: "I’m a poet thru and through. I tried to be a playwright and I went to the theatre. My poetry kept coming back". (Interview by

Ferrier, 2007) She does not think of her writing as English formal poetry or as Cree poetry exclusively; it is simply the best way that she has found to realistically and accurately describe what she and others in her family have experienced.

Contextualizing Louise Halfe’s work, many of the Indigenous authors and orators now working do so within scripted genres, though many utilize multiple genres, thereby avoiding the restrictions of a single mode. For example Tomson Highway is a novelist, playwright, essayist, musician and orator. Daniel Heath Justice is an academic essayist who also writes fiction within the formal genre of fantasy. Gerald Vizenor is a novelist,

124 nêhiyawêwin concepts of reciprocity may tend to be oversimplified by outside criticism. Rather than one helping the other for calculated gain, reciprocity in the more original sense means that one helps another because the other within one’s wâhkôhtowin, one’s relations is an extension of the self. One helps another out of love and caring for that relation and will receive help in return not out of a sense of obligation or indebtedness, but out of the same sense of love and caring that caused them to love at the outset.

181 essayist, poet, and philosopher. There are those of course that so far have stuck to one genre such as novelist Louise Erdrich, poet Annharte, or poet Duncan Mercredi.

However these genre-choices often prove temporary and it would be of little surprise to hear that Annharte had come out with a play (in fact she has), or that visual artist

Robert Houle might come out with a book of poetry (there is poetry sometimes written on his paintings). The idea of conventional boundaries holds little meaningful influence outside of the pragmatics of economics and publishing. Beginning with the premise that a person is to balance an awareness of his or her own intrinsic inborn autonomy with a sense of responsibility to his or her relations, genre boundaries tend to pale in comparison to one’s nêhiyâwiwin sense of community.

Louise Halfe speaks on a level of interpretability where understanding reality becomes possible because the conversation is not weighed down by a reliance on pre- supposed truisms. That is, she does not distract the reader with either a fervent denial or a didactic preaching of a singular outcome. This feeling of expanse and conflict that comes with the ability to arrive at a multiplicity of meanings appears in “ê-kwêskît

Pandora”:

Today I opened a box. I wanted to know what I'm made of. Stones. Feathers. Bones. Skins. I don't understand this. I greet each one as they caress my face, my fingers, my eyes- lay them tenderly in order, size, family… (Halfe 2007, 102)

Much like the emotional play in a painting, whether resonant with impressionism, post- impressionism, or abstract expressionism, the statements of the artist are both

182 universally applicable and intentionally moderate. Like the non-deterministic nature of imagery in these kinds of paintings, Louise Halfe invites the reader to participate in authoring the final meaning of the work as ‘Pandora’ continues:

Coyote, bear, deer, fox, mallard, raven, owl, chickadee, weasel, mouse, rabbit, squirrel. Bones. Jaws. Vertebrae. Ribs. Wings. Tails. Claws. Teeth. Bats, frogs, newts, butterflies. Dried spiders. Walrus stone. mitêwiwin pebbles. Stones with eyes. Jagged crystals. Fur. Snakeskins… The intricate dead, my love. (Halfe 2007, 102-103)

These many objects in her own box of dangerous possibilities, she refers to as “the intricate dead”. These “intricate dead” are not dead in the sense of being inert. All of these artefacts, though seemingly inert, have inherent mahmâtâwisiwin - elemental universal power and life. askiy, the world, even in death expresses neither stillness or inertia. askiy, the world, appears vibrant and alive, as are the ancestors, ‘the dead’ ironically vibrant and alive in their own special ways. This perception contradicts a fear- bound view of death, asserting instead a pragmatic inclusiveness that considers ancestors fundamental participants in family and continuously unfolding wâhkôhtowin.

In older Cree conception death equals change as opposed to finality.

Generations of living nêhiyawak Cree people have no end, and maybe no fixed

183 beginning.125 Knowledge of soul or achâk and the nature of death emerges from the following:

These gifted mysterious people of long ago, kayas ki-mamâhtâwisiwak iyiniwak, my mother, Gone-For-Good, would say. They never died. They are scattered here, there, everywhere, somewhere. They know the language, the sleep, the dream, the laws, these singers, these healers, âtayôhkanak, these ancient story keepers. (Halfe 2007, 3)

Similarly poet Rosana Deerchild says, “The story must be kept and the story must be told, the story must be given away.” (Sounding Out 2010) If the âtayôhkanak keep the story, do they also give it away? Do they give the story to the poet, who then gifts it to a larger audience? Whatever the case, this stanza reveals that the people who had gone before are not in fact gone at all, as death instead equates to renewal and change.

Through the transformative potential of death, any aspect of askiy, or creation may become anything else. An individual being may retain identity, remaining with family or choosing instead to dissociate resulting in the condition that scattered everywhere, dissociated souls create presence and memory in the land. As a further consequence, impressions of askiy come from a collective of souls, these illuminating in turn, sub- currents of mamâhtâwisiwin. This is much like how Gregory Scofield speaks of the urban landscape in the subsection of Singing Home the Bones (2005) “Conversations with the Dead” in the poem ‘Women Who Forgot the Taste of Limes: Letter to ni-

125 Depending on context and interpretation, creation stories are meant to be taken as a part of greater story cycles that often include many versions of creation, some of which define no creation at all but an open ended eternal past. One Cree origin story that I have heard repeated now several times from different community members (who for out of respect for their privacy I do not name here) states that the people fell like falling stars to earth, perhaps they were stars, or in a spark-like form, coming from the stars, or the sky-world as it were, meaning that there was a world before this one. Some understand this world before as a distant world out in space, others more commonly understand it as a different existence, part of a series of layered worlds that are separate from one another, yet intertwined. Through dreams and other methods they may be visited, though not without great effort and sometimes considerable risk.

184 châpan (my ancestor) Mary: “the city is made of blood, wîni (bone marrow)... a grave of history, a dry bone song.” (Scofield 2005, 10) The city is built on injustice, yet the consciousness of the ancestors is everywhere and it is a supportive presence rather than an adversarial one, that is unless one thinks in a colonial way. If this is the case the “dry bone song” becomes a reminder of one’s complicity in past offenses done o Indigenous people who died on the very ground upon which the city is built. Somewhat reflective of this sentiment, Louise Halfe establishes a broad, inclusive understanding of achâk, soul - one in which a singular shared essence exists even across the threshold of death.

Speaking of the ancestors, the speaker continues:

I sat in their thicket. Wailing. The old ones navigated through my dreams. Sometimes they dragged, scolded, cajoled, cheered and celebrated. I wanted to be with them. Like them. (Halfe 2007, 4)

In “the thicket”, the bush, the land the “old ones” still provide example for how to live today – they still may impart knowledge regarding ê-isi-pimâstiyâhk (conjunct form meaning literally ‘if/when/that in such a way we live’) - how they survived, how they spoke, and how they thought. Louise Halfe's ancestors lived as nêhiyawak, embracing action over stillness - a kind of reconstitutive ever-challenging, ever-new way of being.

I ê-kwêskit, am a dreamer. I dream awake. Asleep. On paper. The Old Man said the universe, the day, was the story. So, every day I am born. (Halfe 2007, 4)

The replenishing nature of pawâtamowin, dreaming, and âtahyôhkêwina, narrative artistry, combine in the idea of the eternal moment. If the universe is the day and the day is a story then there exists an eternality of the present. If each day we are born, then each day we experience an inherent awakening to new experience, allowing us to

185 be free from any pre-existing confinement whether related to identity or otherwise.

This forever now eternality is the condition surrounding much âtayôhkêwina and is what has caused interested persons, as in the case of Richard Nelson’s Make Prayers to the

Raven, (1983, Koyukon context) to speak of these stories as occurring in the ‘Distant

Time’. During the Distant Time, contradictorily happening in a reoccurring eternal cyclicality, and superimposed disjointedly on this semi-fictional linear time, reality and nature behave differently and mahmâtâwisiwin is more visible if not more present.

Already in these few passages Louise Halfe has given to the reader a sense of a beginning pattern – one of bringing together strength, drawing together the self, and restoring the understanding of that self as a part of a far greater pattern of relations.

Regarding drawing herself together, the author consults the image of the sweat-lodge, which she calls Rib Woman as in Cree the sweat-lodge is ‘the bone lodge’, a centre of creation, insight, regeneration, and reemergence:

I learned how to build Rib Woman one willow at a time, one skin at a time I am only half done, This is part of the story. (Halfe 2007, 4)

We might take from this that in a sense the speaker, her family, and her extended family of relations have healed a great deal, yet are still coming together, still gathering will, strength, understanding and resolve – all by consulting similar medicine to that used in earlier generations. In short, what Louise Halfe gives us is a feeling of momentum, establishing in the mind of the reader with a sense of near-certainty, that sometime in the future all injuries will have healed, and the lodge - the old ways, the power of the people through community - will stand completed.

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In saying that Rib Woman’s construction goes ahead “one willow at a time”, “one skin at a time”, the sense of forward motion is reinforced, and that even if it is slow and painstaking, all seems fated to resolve for the better given time. The Crooked Good continues the same drawing together song that was initiated in Bear Bones and Feathers and proceeded in Blue Marrow:

I build this story like my lair. One willow, a rib at a time. Bent it into my hip, grounded into earth. I walked the Forest... I walked slow, held a bucksaw, an axe. Bled the willows, draped skins, hide, blankets, tarps over their crippled bodies - this book took shape. (Halfe 2007, 6)

Of the lodge Louise Halfe has also said: “Even the willows, the skins, the elements that make up the lodge, the water, wind, rocks and fire are… spiritual entities who witness and participate in the story making, the story sharing.” (Sounding Out: Indigenous

Poetics Conference. Trent University, Enweying: First Peoples’ House of Learning.

Naagajiwaanong, Peterborough, Ontario, 2010) The surrounding agencies of askiy, the universe have their own life, their own mamâhtâwisiwin, as does the lodge have a body

(in addition to metaphorically representing a body) presence, awareness, and intent of its own. This is apparent as water has a role in Cree medicine historically:

The Cree did tell the future by looking into water. On a raid, the men would all carry little cups. Once on a raid the leader filled his cup half full of water. Then he talked to manito. Then the men built a big fire. The leader pulled his blanket over his head and grasped the blanket with both hands on either side so as to shade his eyes. He intently peered at the water - gazing from different angles continually. He is in a kneeling position. He asks, "Does the fire shine brightly on the water?" The men answer, "Yes." When the fire dies down a little he tells them to build it up again. (Fine Day interviewed by Mandelbaum 1934, transcript p. 3)

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In this case the practitioner has chosen to look at the light’s interaction with the surface of the water and a comparison of perspective changes in order to discern intuition. It is the interplay between disparate actors, the interactive patterns discernable in between and perceptible through the comparison of perspective shifts that actualizes this medicine. This approach is no different than Louise Halfe’s cross-examination of wâhkôhtowin and âcimosowina that occurs in The Crooked Good. By contemplating events and âcimosowina, or life experience stories from as many perspectives of ê- kwêskit’s family members as possible, she interrogates the fabric of wâhkôhtowin, or kinship in ê-kwêskit’s family in order to diagnose the nature and condition of that family’s injury and/or state of empowerment. This further enables both healing and empowerment both for her characters and herself as an author, granted that by understanding and healing her characters she is by proxy understanding and healing herself in ways that would not be possible given a direct approach.

Even voice itself in The Crooked Good has mamâhtâwisiwin – relationship to agency, will, intelligence and life. This becomes apparent in instances where voice merges with the land: "I am inhaling mountains. Voices skate, flow beneath ice shelves, grope through cracks to catch each breath, freeze the voice to itself. A duck splayed in ice still flying, its voice racing beneath slivers." (5) Voice as an expression of breath has agency, will and the ability to move. These voices take a number of forms: "I am hungry for voice, though I live in terror. Unsure what shape will arrive. Voices in thought. A wish. A desire. A dream. A vision. Fingers cannot catch their passing. Invisible Little

People."(5) Here the mêmêkwêsiwak, little people, appear as the shadowed metaphors

188 for voice. The comparison to mêmêkwêsiwak who are at the same time unpredictable, powerful, and benevolent reinforces the impression that the writer does not dictatorially command the course of events or the flow of knowledge. Directed by ancestral and relational voices alongside the voices of the âtayôhkanak that have their own independent will, agency, awareness and intent, the author becomes a participant in the forwarding of knowledge - like someone who by waving his or her hand rekindles the embers before passing on a shell holding sage or cedar. As with smoke, the fingers cannot catch its passing and so voice may be experienced and expressed but not defined or controlled in totality. In that way it remains always in some way uncertain, apparently erratic, undoubtedly enigmatic, and as a result protected.

Similarly Louise Halfe suggests that âtayôhkanak, the spirits of the old stories come to her through her ancestors and the many dead that live in the ground. In Blue

Marrow (2005) the author tells us, “The prairie is full of bones. The bones stand and sing and I feel the weight of them as they guide my fingers on this page.” (2) Similarly the author has said in an interview that she would ask her ancestors questions that would lead to the answers coming out over time through her writing: “When I was writing Blue Marrow I was asking my ancestors what was it like for you? And they would come back and say, ‘Think about your own loving relationship.’ And then I would let the voices come… it’s letting it through.” (University of Alberta Interview Series,

Writing Task Force, October 12, 2005) That is, her ancestors replied to her inquiry suggesting that they way they felt when they were here in this world was similar to the way she feels in relation to her loved ones now.

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Louise Halfe has also said: "I write because that gift was given to me through the dream place." (University of Alberta Interview Series, 2005) As older forms of Cree medicine involve not only healing but pawâtamowin, dreaming beyond the confines of known experience, a second underlying centre of Louise Halfe’s work has to do with this older mode of maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina, or narrative medicine. Of this, pawâtamowin, or dreaming, the author has said:

A dream in many respects is a quest that plants the seed of wonder. In our legends wîsakêchâk asked the help of a muskrat for a palm full of soil so he could use his breath and create the world. One must make concrete the secret language of one’s dream. Make it live for oneself and for one’s people. (Sounding Out: Indigenous Poetics Conference, 2010)

Every individual may develop the ability to dream with equal propensity for accomplishment, and no matter the circumstances the ability to dream cannot be robbed from a person without also robbing them of their life. pawâtamowin, dreaming of the kind present in The Crooked Good, is one of the last sources of insight, comfort, and truth left to us in times of crisis or want.

Nearly anyone committed to the practice may develop writing as a kind of pawâtamowin, or dreaming. Whether through writing, literal dreaming or through another envisioning mashkihkîy, or medicine, pawâtamowin binds the individual and the family to askiy, to earth, the land or the universe: ê-kwêskît says: “I hear my grandmother… Know my child, the mountains make your dreams.” (62) In this way ancestrally informed pawâtamowin (also a contributor to maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina, or narrative medicine) establishes an askiy, earth, land or cosmos inclusive wâhkôhtowin, or sense of relation.

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Louise Halfe’s The Crooked Good represents in a similar way to Gregory Scofield’s kipocihkân (2009) an illustration of one persons’ journey to power and well being.

Likewise in Singing Home the Bones (2005) Gregory Scofield expresses a similar sense of healing not just begun or in progress but completed. This occurs in “Conversation with the Poet”:

One could imagine you a house as any house ...

Strange but stranger still I dream I've sent you all mended bones. And from my house here there is one less box in need of unpacking (Scofield 2005, 67)

Again with the image of bones and a house of mended bones emerges, and this poem seems to speak in the same tonality as Blue Marrow. Here the poet is wishing to the recipient a whole and complete house of stories, a healing and empowerment. A partner to healing, pawâtamowin, dreaming and the âtayôhkan, the spirit of story, which also means ‘ancient legend spirit’ (Halfe 2007, 129) or ‘story keeper’ appear closely related to poetry. âtayôhkan, or story shapes and provides a source for pawâtamowin, dreaming, making dreaming itself alive with âtayôhkan, or ancestral intent. In addition pawâtamowin in poetry shapes life, and the story, the âtayôhkan, that comes from it. These equal a series of recursive (self-referring) circles, a conversation between pawâtamowin, dream, contemporary poetics and âtayôhkan, ancestral story. These two shape each other in a wider ocean of mamâhtâwisiwin, the wonder, the mysterious shared life present in all things.

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4.5 âtayôhkan cihcipistikwân – Rolling Head

In The Crooked Good, Louise Halfe looks for tâpwêwin, or truth amidst a coherent âtayôhkan voice. Bear Bones and Feathers (1994) begins with this voice, emphasizing ancestral narrative and prayer and thereby initiating the foundational thinking for her later work. The basis for this is the Cree concept of âtayôhkan.

âtayôhkan translates not only as sacred story or legend but also simply as ‘story spirit’ – the spirit beings about whom the story is being told. Louise Halfe has said of âtayôhkan:

“ believe it is a spirit that fills one with stories.” (Sounding Out: Indigenous Poetics

Conference, 2010) Regarding âtayôhkan she has also said: “Knowledge is alive, aware is intelligent and responsive.” (Ibid, 2010) The âtayôhkan or story-spirit exists as something capable of independent life and travel, moving through and guiding the writer.

Louise Halfe in The Crooked Good (2007) speaks of âtayôhkan in the third person referring to the story of cihcipistikwân, Rolling Head: “âtayôhkan says when she drowned she became a sturgeon.” The âtayôhkan, the spirit of the story, here synonymous with cihcipistikwân, that ê-kwêskît considers to reflect aspects of herself, makes this claim to transformation. âtayôhkan itself decides which storytellers might tell (or write) of it, and the âtayôhkan, in this case cihcipistikwân, has its own reasons, thought desires, history and motivations. cihcipistikwân speaks to ê-kwêskît’s life with regard to the possible outcomes of infidelity. The question posed by the âtayôhkan cihcipistikwân is whether her fate of becoming monstrous was at all deserved. The story of cihcipistikwân, Rolling Head can be found in Plains Cree Texts as kâ-kîsikaw

192 pîhtokêw - Coming Day’s ‘The Birth of wîsahkêcâhk’ (in Bloomfield (Etd.) 1934, 271). In this telling, a woman is discovered having sex with many snakes by her lover who then becomes jealous and beheads her. Her beheaded, incomplete self rolls as it travels, in agony, delivering torment to others, embodying the question of just revenge versus unjust overreaction and possessivity.

The âtayôhkan cihcipistikwân parallels ê-kwêskît’s life indirectly as her own relations with the husbands of other women bother her, causing her to wonder whether in following her passions she has caused undue hurt to those families affected. The story of The Crooked Good concludes that cihcipistikwân like ê-kwêskît in her own harsh self-judgments was wronged by the excess jealousies and pastâmowin of the greater society’s illness. The older story issued warning to women that some men will behave violently in the face of infidelity, just or not. The older story also works as erotica, suspense, and a tale of self-determination. The meeting with the snakes is presented as erotic and consensual, the pursuit is suspenseful, and the woman’s determination to get what she desires in terms of sexual fulfillment reveals self-determination. For ê-kwêskît it means that her pursuit of passion was innocent, and that society’s brutality in dealing with her was not justified by her supposed transgressions. ê-kwêskît follows by saying:

“I don’t know this. I witness only what my ears held.”(20) In other words this is what the âtayôhkan, the spirit of the story has spoken, and that the events real or not that occur in the story have meaning to her in either case.

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In In the Belly of a Laughing God : Humour and Irony in Native Women's Poetry

(2011) Jennifer Andrews tells of the way in which Louise Halfe maintains nêhiyâwiwin or

Creeness in The Crooked Good:

She asserts the sacred power of the Rolling Head and Turn-Around Woman, dreamers who are decidedly Cree and unwilling to be subsumed in any way, shape or form by Christianity or the English language. What these poets do share is a commitment to depicting women's voices and an insistence upon the close relationship between poetry and song. (Andrews on Halfe 2011, 77)

There is also in Cree medicine a close relationship between song and healing:

When a person is doctoring he usually sings two songs and repeats each one four times. Both will be thunder songs. I have lots of these songs which I use thusly. When my patient gets well I show him these songs so he can use them in the future, when his child can't sleep to sing it to sleep with these songs. (Fineday interviewed by Mandelbaum, 1934, IH- DM 88, transcript p.8)

Combining the concept of lyricism, song and healing might be one way of conceptualizing a Cree poetics in maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina, or narrative medicine. Cree poetics derives its meaning surely from âtayôhkanak in no small part. The Crooked Good seems like a long epic poem, but it might alternatively resemble a long song; the verses of the song have to do with what happens to the family of ê-kwêskît and how this is understood in terms of poetic grounding. In this respect, cihcipistikwân, Rolling head is a narrative that runs through many of the separate-but-contiguous poems in The

Crooked Good, binding them. The story is important in that in some versions it leads to the eventual birth of kistênsinaw ‘our older brother’, the well-known âtayôhkan responsible for much of the reordering and chaos in the world. While on the one hand, destructive, violent acts lead to hardship for cihcipistikwân, on the other hand they

194 resolve as necessary to creation. Consider that without cihcipistikwân’s original infidelity the birth of kistênsinaw may not have happened.

In a similar way, Louise Halfe draws out the intensifying expansive sense of askiy- wâhkôhtowin, or universal relationality in The Crooked Good in the piece titled

‘Manyberries’:

…ospwâkan opened its eyes, lifted us into its lair. The stone lit up and we entered a steep hill, Travelled through thorn trees, a bare windy path. We moved into the swell, met our wâhkômâkanak. One carried a cup and sang, voice musky,

The forked tongue of a river can never be separated. It Shall always run deep,

And poured rain. Another relative decorated herself in starfish, another was covered in pitch, wounds bandaged. (Halfe 2007, 112, italics hers)

That the river can never be separated no matter how many times it splits or forks suggests that those in wâhkôhtowin, in related kinship, though their lives may diverge, all going in different directions, remain together in spirit. These three wâhkômâkanak, these three relatives, one with a cup pouring rain, another covered with starfish, a third bandaged, her wounds covered with pitch come from ê-kwêskît’s pawâtamowin, her dreams. Through images of starfish, rain and pitch, the dream image again ties wâhkôhtowin, family to askiy, the land. There comes from this a sense that those wâhkômâkanak, those relations named in the passage help ê-kwêskît, as does askiy itself. The bandaged relative whose wounds are covered with pitch in the greater context of the reshaped âtayôhkan cihcipistikwân, story-spirit of Rolling Head points to

195 someone in the process of healing from previous wounds using Cree medicine. The narrator, ê-kwêskît heals from the disconnecting wounds of residential school with the help of older Cree ways. In A Matter of Spirit: Recovering the Sacred in Contemporary

Canadian Poetry (1998) Susan McCaslin gives her view of Louise Halfe’s writing:

Sky Dancer Louise B. Halfe has written eloquently in prose about the travesty of the Canadian residential school system (…) and some of her poems address the historic injustices of the Church and the impact of Christianity on her community. She has responded by returning to her native Cree rituals, language and traditions. Her work is deeply integrated because of her spiritual focus which honours the elders, the dances, the songs, the ceremonies, and reconnects her with the world of ancestral and animal spirits, the grandmothers and grandfathers with whom her poetry communes. (McCaslin 1998, 20)

Regarding ancestral spirits, the wâhkômâkan, the relative that pours rain from a cup could refer to someone in ê-kwêskît’s life that gives her life or love continuously and freely. This could be nôhkom, her grandmother or aspin, her mother. More likely it refers to the collective of her family, ancestors as well, that give her strength and love.

The wâhkômâkan, the relative that is covered in starfish, an image that calms the spirit, can represent how the wâhkômâkanak together can lift the spirit of ê-kwêskît.

“wâhkômâkanak” Louise Halfe defines as: “relatives”, “kin”; “the crooked relatives”, or more specifically, “walking in a bent over way among the relatives.” (130) Louise Halfe in the Sounding Out: Indigenous Poetics Conference spoke of kinship in this way:

And wâhkôhtowin, everybody’s been talking about wâhkôhtowin as about relationship with kin and whatnot, but it’s not one straight path as we see it here. wâhkôhtowin means not only the going-around of a circular lifespan, but … we’re walking in a very crooked manner. Not like thieves and whatnot, but our bodies become crooked and bent over, and even our thoughts sometimes sway us to a different direction, and that’s what wâhkôhtowin actually means. wâhkôhtowin, in this crooked and

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sacred manner, with all our faults and our demons and our joys and our happiness. That’s what that means. (Sounding Out, 2010)

This gives additional meaning for ‘crooked’ as in that of “The Crooked Good”. ‘Crooked’ has to do with the all of us being caught in the endless round becoming gradually bent over, or crooked. This involves ê-kwêskît’s struggle with regret as she contemplates whether she has committed pastâhowin, fundamental injury to others, or whether her actions were those of a free person living out her life. ‘Crooked’ means that in many cases where pastâhowin seems (by a newer set of colonially influenced judgments) to have occurred, in reality it may not have. Instead, ê-kwêskît’s actions would have made sense to the ancestors, who lived in a similar way, having high esteem for freedom in life and in love, and that her apparent missteps were ultimately innocent in origin, necessary divergent paths in her finding her way through life. No self-condemnation is necessary and neither is condemnation of those around her.

‘The Crooked Good’ means that we become good through all of our flaws as well as our strengths. The ‘Crooked Good’ refers then not just to the speaker or the author by proxy, but also to the readership and all those who struggle with the question of whether their past offenses against others outweigh the good they have done for others. The ‘Crooked Good’ then describes a state of mind that has comes to terms with these things and even considers them necessary and vital steps in becoming. A person whose body becomes gradually bent in this way encodes wisdom as is it progresses through the successive healing of injury after injury. Injury replaced by healed bones and scar-tightened muscles and tendons bends one closer and closer to the earth. In other words life experience both positive and negative contributes to

197 one’s knowledge. Maybe part of what is meant by ‘The Crooked Good’ is that especially when considering the endless round of lives being renewed and souls reborn in different forms, no one is excepted from having carried out some kind of grave offense or pastâhowin against others. This is natural, to be expected and does not justify condemnation, of anyone. No individual, no soul is considered a write off or wasted, unless of course they have gone windigo and become wholly selfish, as is the case of the mass-insanity of the colonial project. Even in the case of a person having become completely self-absorbed, there are traditional cures for this in addition to the last resort corporal punishment as described in Robert Brightman’s “The Windigo in the

Material World” (1988). These have to do with the administering of medicines, often to induce the affected person to purge the ice that has inundated their heart and blood.

ê-kwêskît, after a great deal of consideration, wonders if amidst grave self- doubt, maybe all along she has been of sound character, having judged herself too harshly. As a ‘Crooked Good’, she learned to walk in a bent over way amongst the wâhkômâkanak - she lived in a way that resonated with ê-isi-pimâstiyâhk, the old ways, which did not make her seem either sanctimonious or self-deprecating in relation to them. The reasons why the ancestors even acted as they did, did not always make sense to others, both inside and outside of the family. The life of ê-kwêskît here directly reflects Louise Halfe’s own life: “…I messed up my life for a long, long time until I met my beautiful husband who… through, with him, we traveled this journey, healing together.” (Sounding Out, 2010) Though likely dealt heavy criticism, ê-kwêskît’s ancestors’ actions at times, like her own in the long run, led often to improved well

198 being for the family and for the community. Like those that went before, she is often misunderstood, often even internally, but in retrospect her actions like theirs have led to overall good outcomes. This describes a gradual shift in voice that begins in Bear

Bones and Feathers and becomes decidedly stronger through Blue Marrow and The

Crooked Good. The shift in perception has to do with a growing belief and trust in oneself on the part of the ê-kwêskît, and in a growing trust in the people. This growth of self and community trust happens in the face of the ê-kwêskît for example not always perfectly understanding her own or her family’s actions in the moment.

4.6 Deep Roots: New Literatures as Expressions of âtayôhkêwina

New Indigenous literatures continue the stewardship of âtayôhkêwina, breathing new life into many of these that may have nearly died in residential school. Of residential school Louise Halfe has said: "Essentially what happened is it destroyed my family… What they did was teach cultural shame, internalized self-hatred, systemic racism." (Interview by Ian Ferrier at The Words Aloud 4 Spoken Word Festival, Durham,

Ontario, November 2007) Her siblings had gone ahead to Blue Quills residential school and as a six-year old, she felt as though they had simply disappeared. Representatives of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, the organization analogous to the United States

Bureau of Indian Affairs, had come to get her and her niece in the middle of the night, something she accurately refers to as child abduction. (Interview by Ian Ferrier, 2007)

Many misunderstand why families would “give up” their children to go to residential school. At the time the majority of Cree and Anishnaabe communities had

199 been militarily relocated to lands that could not sustain agriculture or hunting, especially considering that the buffalo and other game had been systematically killed off. As a result families existed in states of coercion and control similar to those found in prison camps, the only difference being that with large expanses of wilderness separating communities, and the interspersed land cleansed of game, fences were not necessary.

Individuals refusing to surrender children to residential school would be incarcerated and rations to their families withheld. (Manitoulin elder and Professor Shirley Williams, in a talk given at Trent University, 2010 )126 Despite the strict controls of residential school, Louise Halfe managed to hold on to the language and many of the old ways, much of this reinforced by summer visits with her family.

In The Crooked Good, ê-kwêskît’s brother Mechanic remembers the brutality of residential school:

...Spoke little English, hid my Cree. Cut my braids. I thought someone died. I wanted charcoal to paint my cheeks. Father-What-A-Waste became a hornet, unbuckled his belt. My breath ran those hallways. I fought. His neck was a cobra. Sister threw ice water, a scrub brush, lye soap. I burned. Forced cod-liver oil. I vomited and vomited. Licked the floor. Sacred old man buggered me. Bastards. How can I share this? (Halfe 2007, 86)

This is what was happening at the time of the collection of Plains Cree Texts, and yet the texts themselves does not seem to reflect it. Explanations of this require more inquiry into what was happening in Cree communities at the time, by talking to relatives of

126 For complementarity also refer to Katherine Pettipas’ Severing The Ties That Bind : Government Repression of Indigenous Religious Ceremonies on the Prairies, Manitoba Studies in Native History, 7. Winnipeg, Manitoba: University of Manitoba Press, 1994.

200 those that were there. ê-kwêskît by sharing the experiences of her brother, that sexual abuse, rape, physical abuse and emotional abuse was the norm at residential school. By saying “How can I share this?” Mechanic illustrates the feeling that many shared, that the shame accompanying having suffered abuse often affected a silencing of those abused, effectively doubling their injury. That this was known to those in the highest echelons of power and that it was allowed to continue confirms that the genocide of

Cree people and the abuses suffered by those like Mechanic was intentional. Those lower in the echelon carried out the abuse. And while higher-ups outwardly may have criticized the abuse, they covered for those priests, nuns, Indian Agents, soldiers, police and other supposedly upstanding citizens who carried out the actions.

There was a time where Louise Halfe underwent a reclamation of much of the old knowledge. Beginning in her early twenties she spent time as part of an effort to reawaken the Cree-ness that had been driven underground or otherwise harmed by residential school and the previous phases of colonialism: "There was a band of Indians that left the Hobbema reserve in Alberta - Smallboy's band and Makinaw, through their leaving and retreating into the mountains in Tipis and tents that kinda renewed I suppose and revitalized what had been damaged. And I ended up, up there, and that's where it began my journey of reclaiming and resurrecting what had gone to sleep."

(Interview by Ferrier, 2007). Cree people at Hobbema were named for their relationship to the land:

Yes I have just returned from Saddle Lake… The people there are on four reserves: pus-kwa winiwuk - Prairie people, nipicehkupawiyiniwuk - Willow Bush, neaskweawiyiniwuk - Bluff End people , kiciputinawiyiniwuk -- End of Hill people. The name for all is amuskwatciwiyin wuk –Beaver

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Hill People. (Paskimin interviewed by Mandelbaum, 1935, IH-DM 84, transcript p. 1)

This integration of place-name and people-name gives the sense that there is far greater diversity among Cree people than is often assumed, and that of course the land plays heavily into community identity. The camp Louise Halfe refers to was a traditional Cree gathering on the Kootenay Plains in the foothills of Alberta's Rocky Mountains.127 This reclamation may have begun earlier than Smallboy’s camp, and to be certain it continues through to the present, as is evident in all of Louise Halfe’s writing. The three books taken together, Bear Bones and Feathers, Blue Marrow, and The Crooked Good, if understood as a single epic poem build one from the next, slowly gathering momentum.

To say that they together describe both an awakening of the author and of many others who endured similar experiences may not be far from the truth.

If we allow for the moment that the people together are like a tree, then residential school was a fire that burned much of the tree away, leaving in many cases, the roots128 intact. The layers of misinformation causing confusion were many - the

127 Robert Smallboy who is credited with founding the camp was active in Cree traditional revitalization since at least 1959 through the mid-1980’s. See Botting, Gary Norman Arthur. Chief Smallboy : In Pursuit of Freedom. Calgary: Fifth House, 2005.

128 Nishnaabe visual artist Thomas Olszewski-Shilling of Detroit and Mjikaning/Rama recently did an art show called 'Tribal Death' at Naagaajiwanong, Peterborough Ontario in the small local cafe Black Honey. The shock title brought attention to the story told by the paintings - each image represented fragments of thought that the artist had little or no knowledge of but felt as though he as a Nishnaabe person should by rights possess. The story told by the images had to do with the idea that this perceived absence of knowledge resulted from colonial misinformation and reprogramming - through these deliberately and recklessly contorted histories. They also showed just how severely Anishnaabe ancestral thought has been affected, yet they also showed also how the way in which one addresses this erasure can work a personal medicine leading potentially to healing and empowerment. Painting for Thomas Olszewski-Shilling is a way of asking the ancestors about themselves as is it a practice of good living - something that is enjoyable to do.

202 priest himself told ê-kwêskît he had made his peace, and this in the face of all of the cruelties the church had inflicted on herself, her family, and her people:

The bear that lives in me. These intricate dead - Memento Mori. The priest said, I've made my peace,

as he lifted a fork of charcoal bodies, my ancestors' bundles, sacred pipes, braided hair and pelts. (Halfe 2007, 102)

Yet the people still retained many aspects of ancestral thinking, even weaving them at times into their own re-authored Cree Christianity. This inversion of colonial pressure redirected the destructive momentum of colonialism towards protecting the old ways.

It is a stratagem for survival that, due to its complexity, can neither be judged or wholly understood. Edward Ahenakew’s life illustrates this approach as does that of

Anishnaabe author Andrew Blackbird, Ogallala visionary Black Elk, and Haudenosaunee prophet Handsome Lake, as do they all express something of the invariable contradictions and dilemmas involved. Edward Ahenakew for his part as an Anglican minister gathered and popularized many of the old stories, while at the same time he quietly continued to emphasize use of nêhiyawêwin, Cree language. (Cuthand in

Ahenakew and Buck (Etd.) 1995, from Ahenakew’s notes circa 1920) Within the philosophy of the Anglican church, missionization was the end goal and the means to this goal were often overlooked. For this reason continued use of the language so long as it was intended to strengthen missionization was tolerated. This left room for many of the older Cree ideas carried by the language to continue, and for the control over translation and presentation of ideas in the language to be left to the people.

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Duplicity as relates to ecclesiastical station must have been difficult for Edward

Ahenakew and those like him, knowing that he worked for an organization that had so deeply harmed his people. In essence doing this kind of redirection weighs risks against possible benefit, and these kinds of negotiations often have grave personal consequences. For Edward Ahenakew redirection seemed to have worked, as he clearly did a great deal more to reinvigorate Creeness than he did to harm it by participating in the church. He was active in bringing Cree people together with other Nations as was evident through his helping to found The National Indian Brotherhood and to lead in part The League of Indians. Edward Ahenakew was a favorite great-uncle of the well known linguist and scholar Freda Ahenakew, who admired him for bringing the people together as he did. (Aboriginal Multi-Media Society, 2012) Freda Ahenakew maybe inspired by the example of her great-uncle, has also made great contributions to the revitalization of Creeness, namely through her work with the language and by chronicling the stories of Cree peoples’ life experience in the language.

Edward Ahenakew writing about Cree traditional stories in the 1920’s, does not have his words appear in print until 1973 in Voices of The Plains Cree. In this work he reveals very much how the old storytellers were narrative artists, or author-orators for the purposes of this conversation, often highly interpreting ‘standards’ or stories already known to many. In the following passage Edward Ahenakew reveals his own passion for

âtayôhkêwina and for âcimowina told with âtayôhkêwin sensibilities:

An Old Man often had the gift of eloquence, enhanced by a descriptive language and by superb mastery of gesture. He used his skill with natural simplicity, weaving into stories of everyday events the great primary meanings of life. This genius was most evident in the narration of past

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events, of raids and battles and the chase. He might bring a bit of comedy into a tragic story, touch it with pathos, or sweeten it with love and loyalty and do all this in a language highly figurative, and yet suited to the subject; and his listeners would sit entranced, imagining that they saw and heard the events enacted before them tales of struggles almost super-human, of endurance, of perilous adventure, of long hazardous excursions into enemy country, of love, of anything indeed that was ever of any consequence in Indian life. All these stories were hoarded in the minds of Old Men; they were kept intact, unchanging, entrusted through the years by one generation to the next. (Ahenakew 1973 in Ahenakew and Buck (Eds.) 1995, 10)

Here also Ahenakew reinforces the preeminence of humor in Cree stories while explaining that they posses all of the qualities that comprise engaging literature in any measure. It may well have been his sustained interest in diverse thought systems that carried Edward Ahenakew forward in his life. He may have alienated people on both sides of the ecclesiastical divide, yet in his own speech he seems to indicate a preference for interesting and engaging ideas regardless of their genre of origin. This is deeply ironic as the willingness to embrace concepts that are in and of themselves interesting without discriminating, seems to have always been an aspect of nêhiyâwiwin, or Creeness. While missionaries came predisposed to seeing and respecting only their own ideas, many came to converse with nêhiyawak in neutral intellectual spaces, where abstraction took the place of spiritual origin of an idea, and where concepts could be discussed for their integrity and texture as opposed to their political alignment. The church’s intensifying role in harming nêhiyawak would come to obscure earlier more two-sided conversations between individual missionaries and community members, and surely as the pressures moved from smallpox introduction, to massacre, to bounties offered to Indian Act removal and restriction, and then to

205 residential school madness, many of those missionaries who valued Cree ideas would have been driven into complicity with church policies.

Many of the old ways that remained through the storm are so subtle that the

English language fails to characterize them well, at least when without the help of some kind of poetics. Most of the old ways continued under the stewardship of the majority of Cree people that did not receive credit or recognition for doing so, and who did not have formal professional or political title or fame. The sense of family for example, something that was rebuilt or reawakened to use Louise Halfe’s words, that emerges from The Crooked Good, and takes the entirety of the narrative to comprehensively communicate, was an old way one might say so many are the levels of subtlety that define it. It corresponds with the kinship emerging out of the old story sketches in

Plains Cree Texts, and those of Ojibwa Texts.

The roots or the memory the people kept of a better life before, were strong enough for many to rebuild, and so much of the tree has grown anew. This new life is what Louise Halfe seems to be singing back, in the manner of Gregory Scofield’s “Singing

Back the Bones,” or helping along the rebirth of the soul of the ancestors in her own life through her writing. Her writing resembles song, expressing a lyrical quality:

I will be in your barren walls, wide-eyed or in your folded sleep I will be water-borne, the shadow In your paradise, the fantasy in Your nightmares, the sorcerer In your illusions, the magician In your desire. (Halfe 2007, 33, italics hers)

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Louise Halfe’s writing is like rain to that new tree, encouragement and nourishment to support its continued growth. Life though does not come easy. It is a constant struggle for any living thing to grow, and Louise Halfe's writing reflects this - with each inch the tree climbs skyward, an opposing force must be overcome. That opposing force comes in the form of continued waves of injury done to the people by an often indifferent world. But the people of the western world are again listening - if only with half of one ear - to the voices of people outside the walls so to speak. And so it may be an opportune time to invite conversations across borders and boundaries in the hopes of finding a better way of life for all people.

4.7 On tâpwêwin and the Layered Comparison of Different Translations

All of the English descriptions of terms here approximate Cree concepts as well as possible, but clarifying and correcting all of the unintended meanings that come with the currently necessary use of English do not seem possible. Louise Halfe has expressed similar misgivings when translating:

sakasino wapân in English means east, or more specifically refers to an emergence of light, a deeper essence of something before the event of dawn. This cannot be found in words. From sakasino I have also derived the word tê or heart. This essence of dawn has and contains heart, the place of love. (Halfe, Sounding Out, 2010)

“This cannot be found in words” points to the lack of ability for language to completely address human experience, and that many of the most important concepts in Cree cannot be expressed accurately by any speech, much less translated. One method for clarifying Cree concepts that Louise Halfe uses has to do with comparing different

207 translations of the same idea. In the following, the author gives an initial translation that is closer to the actuality of the Cree concept, though harder to understand when rendered in English:

Light unfolds from the thick forests of nowhere, the sun follows, arrives from the heart. Fire feels the strawberries and illuminates the big heavens. This great being; the eyes reach to do this labor in front of them, they are struck by lightning, branches of dozens of rivers that ripple in a bone-lodge. Here the bent and crooked beings give their Creator a hard time. (Halfe, Sounding Out, 2010)

The author then goes on to explain that “This is not the story, the language of the everyday speaker, … this writer’s taken some creative license. In essence the poem is translated from Cree thought, an open Cree translation of the language. This is the most straight-forward translation in English.” She then gives a second translation, one adapted to conventions more likely to be familiar to an audience whose first language is

English. She then suggests that by looking at the juxtaposition between the first and the second translations we can better understand the subtleties of the original concept and what is often missing if conventional English translations take the place of those that are closer to the original language. The second translation:

Towards the sunrise, each, east arrives, dawn lights the fields and human hearts, illuminates everyone’s being, stirs thought in seeing. Their fingers reach to do the labor in front of them. They are struck by many neurons, pathways to the brain, housed in human skulls. In a sweat lodge they pray, give over to God their difficulties. (Halfe, Sounding Out, 2010)

She closes by saying “Same poem, different way of perceiving.” The second translation complements the first, but if it were given alone without the first translation, it would give the reader the sense that she or he has understood the concept completely when

208 in truth the concept has been generalized, leaving out or distorting many nuanced ideas.

Instead of being satisfied with working from English translations alone, seeking understanding of source concepts in Cree language helps a great deal when a reader or listener wishes to get an accurate idea of the original intended meanings of a given text.

The teaching her grandmother gives to ê-kwêskît repeatedly in The Crooked

Good is that truth, life, and power live in each individual, and though that individual may need help from others to realize it, each person is one and part with askiy, creation, with the mystery of existence. Stated in another way, each person is a component result of manitow, mystery and mahmâtâwisiwin, the wonder of the mystery. This resonates with some of what cicikwayaw explains in Plains Cree Texts (1934):

"isko askiy kit-êhtakohk, êwakôh ta-mawimoscikâkêyêk as long as (the) earth it exists that one (if) you all should cry out for miyo-kîkway ta-ntotamêk, êkosi kici-pakitintinâwâw. a good thing (that) you all should do it is true (very much) you all will be set free

êkaya wîhkâc pônihtâk not ever (may) you all leave it alone isko kit-êhtakohk om(a) âskiy. as long as it exists this earth miyo-kîkway kâ-wîhtamâtakok a good thing I have said to you all nama wiya kîkway ê-mâyâtahk ka-kîhwîhtamâtinâwâw not by contrast something (that) is bad have I said to you all

êwakô kinwês êh-pimâtisiwiniwik kâ-wîhtamâtakok" This (preveiously mentioned) a long time (that) there may be life I have said to you all itikwak kisê-manitowah. they were told (by) (the) great mystery

Bloomfield's Translation: "That, as long as the earth shall endure, you pray, asking for rightful things, that is the way I set you down to live. Do you never cease from this as long as this earth endures. It is a rightful thing I proclaim to you; no evil thing shall I ever by any possibility proclaim

209 to you. This which I have proclaimed to you is that there be long life," they were told by the Great Spirit. (20|21)

Author’s Translation: "As long as the earth exists, that one - if you all cry out for good things, if you should all do that, very much will you all be set free. Not ever may you all leave it alone, as long as it exists, this earth. A good thing I have said to you all, not by contrast something that is bad have I said to you all. This previously mentioned, a long time that there may be life I have said to you all," they were told by the great mystery.

There is discernable a considerable difference between Bloomfield's wistful, almost grandiose translation and this newer, more direct translation. This will hopefully allow the reader some example as to how better to understand nêhiyawêwin through layered translation comparison, and by refraining from distorting translations with nostalgia or aggrandizement. Cree people and language arguably favors straightforwardness, clarity, and pragmatism, where flourish and elaboration tends to be seen as excess more quickly than in formal English. This is a reflection of Cree social aesthetics, those that emphasize tâpwêwin. Excessive emphasis, exaggeration can skew the truth, and incomplete or distorted truths must be discouraged given that the colonial project has inundated the people with falsity and illusion so as to undermine their confidence and become obedient.

Returning to the passage, the people if they continue to listen and speak with or to the mystery of existence, and not knowing or claiming to know in an absolute way if their actions will have result or meaning - then they will, simply by continuing the effort to know and relate, find the way to long life and all good things. This is a very hopeful message endemic to Louise Halfe's work - that by refocusing the idea of identity away

210 from the individual and onto the invisible stuff of relation, if the latter becomes the source of one’s identity, then miyo-pimâtisiwin, good life will follow.

ê-kwêskît, early on in The Crooked Good, entreats the reader:

You can tell me After you hear this story If my name suits me. I've yet to figure it out. (Halfe 2007, 3)

But ê-kwêskît in a way is all women that are looking back on their lives, or that have taken new directions in their lives, often in contemplation of some of the wrongs they may have done to others. Later in a passage where she describes teasing her sister by calling her the White Goddess, she explains:

I suppose you think it weird that I'd give my sister, Three Person this name. We are like that on the rez... I am Bernadette, Christianized. Colonized. Confirmed. Bernadette. Don't tell anybody. I like ê-kwêskît better. (Halfe 2007, 83)

nêhiyawêwin embraces layered names, as no one name could be said to describe a person. For this reason, there is no limit to the number of names a person may carry. ê- kwêskît is Turn-Around-Woman, Bernadette (in this moment she is Louise Bernice Halfe) and she has other names. And so the layered nature of multiple translation applies even to personal names. As a result it becomes apparent that many different paths can be found through the layered meanings that come from multiple translations, yielding the coexistence of multi-faceted realities.

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4.8 Louise Halfe Conclusions

Louise Halfe’s writing is part of what some critics have defined as a kind of renaissance, an expansion of creative works by Indigenous writers. In truth the number of Indigenous writers publishing has increased steadily since the advent of the Civil

Rights Movement, in part because publishers have since been more willing to print works by Indigenous authors. Louise Halfe may be understood as a Cree writer so long as this definition does not in any way suggest that her writing is in any way limited by the label. So Louise Halfe is an Indigenous writer, a Cree writer, and a writer whose work addresses universal human experience. Her ideas even when they are undeniably

Cree in origin share voice with other writers around the world who chronicle some aspect of common experience, and they contain teachings that may appeal to any individual or community of any background. Cree people have always willingly shared their ideas with those people of European descent who were willing to listen in the hopes of transforming western empires into something approximating healthier societies. Many of these teachings have not been in vain. Widespread environmental awareness for example is a direct result of westerners combining their own historical romantic naturalism and naturalistic philosophy with teachings from Indigenous people.129

129 A study on the Indigenous influence on western naturalism if not already in existence would be very interesting. Of special interest would be the teachings of particular Indigenous people and the conversations had between individuals of different Indigenous Nations, Europeans also, who may have influenced western naturalism and conservation philosophy over the years. For instance did naturalists such as Aldo Leopold, John Muir or Ralph Waldo Emerson have friendships with Indigenous people? If so who were they, under what circumstances did they meet, and what did they talk about?

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These writings express as well what might be called narrative resonance: though they exist in completely new conformations, shapes and styles, they call back to ancestral narrative patterns. Many of the original story elements persist albeit in hidden or changed form, expressed most tangibly by a poetic approach or layered patterning of ideas. To be clear, in these works and in the works of Louise Halfe there is no attempt to tell traditional stories in ancestral modes exactly, but the works themselves are rooted deeply in community ancestral narrative practice. The result of renewed tellings is that the old stories do not remain frozen in fixed states, but receive new life as part of an ongoing telling. The integrity of ancestral thought remains not in its ability to stay the same but in the way it facilitates improvisation while retaining the most vital aspects of older patterns. Louise Halfe’s poetry speaks in a mode that resembles more Cree traditional prayer singing. Halfe works within the genre of English poetry to carry this fusion of modes of communication, combining prayer, visioning, healing and empowerment speech. Louise Halfe’s writing, though resolutely Cree on the one hand, is not limited parochially; as the âcimowina, the life experience stories she relates have universal applicability. The way she describes her âcimowina, her life experience as well has a kind of universal comprehensibility. In many ways what she has done is to re-tell some of the old stories, contextualizing them with and grounding them in everyday life, while translating them into a self-tailored mode of English that does minimal damage to the original concepts.

It is impossible to describe accurately what happens in a dream or an extremely trying situation for that matter without poetics. In this instance history fails us. It is

213 only through poetry or some other art, that what was felt can be communicated with any semblance of actuality to a reader or listener. Poetry then, or rather descriptive language that does not claim to be able to describe an occurrence in totality gets closer at describing many kinds of experiences than does verbatim retelling of details, no matter how seemingly accurate they may be. This may be why many poets and other writers are drawn to poetics - because in their modesty and inability to describe accurate truths in a historical fashion, through poetics they find themselves able to come closer to describing those truths. Louise Halfe’s poetics is just this then, not descriptive language or flourish for the sake of itself, or to conform to expectations of formal English poetry, but because it is necessary to describe truthfully and accurately her life experience.

The Crooked Good has sketched out part of a map through the labyrinthine fallout of continuing colonialism. Though the residential school era is a recent catastrophic event in the life of Cree people, we may do well to remember that this represents just one in a series of cataclysmic events they have weathered. Louise Halfe states in her own distinct voice, what it is to be human within vast relations – that it has never been enough for people to exist as islands by themselves, but that in this time of compromised compassion, family means that one regards the suffering or the happiness of another as one’s own. She has recurrently said in interviews that she does not like to be seen as a Cree author. She does not want to be type cast or limited to a narrow publication audience. Also when all is taken together, Creeness is humanity, and this message can be lost amidst expectations and false images surrounding what Creeness is.

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So rather than the reader looking at her work considering what every word means in terms of his or her prejudices (whether good or bad) surrounding Creeness, she intends that the reader consider her words as the experiences of one human being, writing for all creation.

If our humanity may be measured by the extent of our compassion, that is our ability to share emotion with one an other and with all our relations, then our individuality becomes a determination of our bond with askiy or aki. Alternatively the individual may be understood by looking at the broad map of her or his relations, not limited to the human family alone, but taking into account the broadest sense of relationality.

In each of the tellings of the life experience of one of the family members of ê- kwêskît the named experiences become of personal importance to the narrator, as though the events in their lives were also happening to her. Like many strands of light coming from the individual each connecting to one of her relations - each person, and each animal, each stone and each star having these invisible radiances, all intertwined – that gives some idea of what wâhkôhtowin means. Add to this that each thread itself has agency, will, determination and even consciousness and the map becomes so dense with relation as to appear as a near singular luminescence.

Louise Halfe has said that ‘it is up to us’ meaning contemporary Indigenous writers, to retell the old stories in ways that renew their life. (Interview by Ian Ferrier at the Words Aloud 4 Spoken Word Festival in Durham, Ontario, Canada, November 2007)

Breathing or singing new life into âtayôhkanak, the spirits of the old stories and allowing

215 them to give us new life constitutes a kind of maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina, or narrative medicine. This Louise Halfe shows us by revealing a unification of wâhkôhtowin

(kinship, family, relationality) âtayôhkêwin (narrative artistry, narrative practice, the will or spirit of the story) and pawâtamowin (dreaming, visioning, writing) all pervaded by mamâhtâwisiwin.

Maskihkîy may come in the form of teas or salves, sweats or fasting, but a current of âtayôhkêwina, or narrative artistry always carries it. So becomes âtayôhkê- mashkikîwin, or maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina - narrative medicine. Pawâtamowin, dreams and visions, twin aspects of medicine or maskihkîy are also present in narrative medicine, each of these representing ways of addressing mental restrictions. In Cree, pawâtamowin, or the practice of dreaming, involves the dreams of sleep as does it involve waking dreams, those that come through the thirst dance, kosâpacikamikos (the shaking tent), kîhikosimowin (fasting), illness, injury, or from struggles with the elements.

The maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina or narrative medicine that Louise Halfe invokes involves a continuation and renewal of classical Cree concepts like those found in the bilingual nêhiyawêwin-English Plains Cree Texts (1934) and the bilingual works of Freda

Ahenakew. By writing about âcimosowina, her own life experience, Louise Halfe provides insight as to revitalizing nêhiyâwiwin, or Creeness. This renewal of knowledge serves additionally as a gift to future generations, thereby helping to restore the power130 and well being of the people. Drawing medicine knowledge, power and

216 healing from âtayôhkêwina happens throughout generations, and though this continuity was disrupted by the residential schools, Louise Halfe carries out her responsibility to renew wâhkôhtowin, kinship with âtayôhkêwina, narrative artistry. Louise Halfe’s work then may be understood from the perspectives of nêhiyawêwin influences and through language-bound ideas like wâhkôhtowin, kinship, âtayôhkêwina, the telling of sacred stories, âcimosowina, the telling of life histories, and âcimowina, the telling of news or events. Informed by nêhiyawêwin, Cree language, her work comes into resolution as active poetic narrative medicine for her people.

wâhkôhtowin, while it is defined by the flow of mamâhtâhwisiwin, means also that one shares the injury and joy of one’s relations. Part of wâhkôhtowin is the mapping of extended family, but of a kind not limited only to human relations. All other aspects of creation - animals, stars, spirits, even atâhyôkânak, sacred story beings - may have their place in this relational map. As all relation is mediated by mamâhtâhwisiwin, a map of one’s relations could also be read as a map of the flow of mamâhtâhwisiwin in one’s life. As a consequence of wâhkôhtowin, one’s personal mysterious vital power receives direct harm or help if those near or critical in one’s map of relations are so affected.

All of this is communicated in The Crooked Good with compassion of a kind that comes out of an understanding of wâhkôhtowin, and of the self as an expression of mamâhtâwisiwin. Louise Halfe’s narrative medicine practice does not exist for herself

130 Power does not refer in any way to the kind of power that implies the ability to subjugate another. In terms of ancestral miyo-pimâtisiwin, good balanced life, this kind of power is abhorrent. Power instead here refers to the ability to aid one’s relations and to affect change in one’s life so as to bring about greater well being for oneself, one’s family and one’s broader community of relations inclusively.

217 alone, but as a demonstration of a practice that may prove useful to and mediate healing for others. It is an expression of community responsibility that comes from a love for her relations. Though it may empower as well as cure, Louise Halfe’s work then, does not come from a place of healing alone, but of celebration of human beings’ place in existence.

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5 mashkikii-dibaajimowin: Narrative Medicine in Marie Annharte Baker’s Exercises in Lip Pointing

5.1 Medicine Lines

Ancestral thinking, as understood from the thematic content of the Ojibwa Texts and the Plains Cree Texts, empowers communities to tell their own stories on their own terms. Maintenance and renewal of ancestral thought and accompanying narrative arts, of the kind that forward intellectual self-determination, continue in the narrative medicine practices of contemporary poets. Narrative medicine, renewed by modern poets, is passed along, refined and innovated in a cycle of ideological gifting uncountable generations old. In this way current generations inherit not only stories as fixed patterns, but also a means of authoring and innovating new stories relevant to current challenges and events. This in turn affects individual and community ability to orient perspective and illuminate pathways to greater possibility. If an individual or community possesses narrative medicine ability, this will always come accompanied by an enhanced propensity for self determination.

Marie Annharte Baker, or Annharte who is Anishnaabe from the Little

Saskatchewan First Nation in Manitoba, was born in 1942. Regarding her name, “She uses her middle name Annharte (a Welsh name from a character in the movie How

Green is My Valley), as her author name because the character in the movie offers hope for poor people.” (Annharte Interviewed by Pauline Butling in Butling and Rudy (Eds.)

2005, 99) Annharte has written four books of poetry: Being on the Moon (1990), Coyote

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Columbus Cafe (1994), Exercises in Lip Pointing (2003)131, and Indigena Awry (2012).

Raised in Winnipeg, she has been consistently critical of this city due to its prevalent although oftentimes concealed racism. She has lived in Regina, where she co-founded the Regina Aboriginal Writers Group. She has lived also and studied living and studied in

Brandon, Vancouver, and Minneapolis. While a writer she has worked as an educator, activist, and social worker. She continues to write poetry and to speak at readings and poetry slams, living alternatively between Winnipeg, Regina and Vancouver.

In the same way that Daniel Heath Justice describes Cherokee thought weathering colonialism in Our Fire Survives the Storm (2006) many of the oldest aspects of Anishnaabe narrative remain although not necessarily discernable at first glance. The importance of extended family, the land as an extended family of relations, an expansive sense of relation, erotic humour, refined critical thinking and speaking skills - these all have been carefully maintained and protected. Annharte and Louise Halfe’s poetry both do all of these things, in a similar way that older narrative forms also did.

Renate Eigenbrod states that Annharte perceives no fundamental differentiation among orality, writing and imagery in terms of their comprising Anishnaabe literature.

In “A Necessary Inclusion: Native Literature in Native Studies” (2010) Eigenbrod observes:

Some of today's Native writers in Canada, all fluent in English and versed in the European literary genres, like to emphasize the written tradition, but many others highlight "our significant oral traditional literary contributions" (Baker 61). Anishinaabe poet Annharte Baker does not see a contradiction in her wording and adds in a further statement, "to me, a

131 Exercises in Lip Pointing came from the notes of a book planned but not published that was to be titled ‘Blueberry Canoe’. (Butling in Butling and Rudy (Eds.) 2005, 91)

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pictograph is a novel" (62). (Eigenbrod 2010, 7; references to Annharte from Annharte Baker 1993)

Similarly, Annharte says, “I believe in the old stories. I feel that much beauty remains in these narratives.” (Annharte 2009, 117) There are several narrative genres semi- formally recognized in Cree and Anishnaabe community-based narrative study contemporarily: sacred stories, Cree âtayôhkêwin and Anishnaabe aadizokewin sometimes referred to as legend or stories and having to do with Cree mamâhtâwisiwin and Anishnaabe maamaandaawiziwin beings; alternatively there is the telling of events,

Cree âcimowina, the sister concept to Anishnaabe dibaajimowin. Annharte’s writing involves a mix of playfully biting humour, focused social awareness and pointed political consciousness that aligns her writing with Anishnaabe ancestral sacred story poetics of the kind understood from The Ojibwa Texts. Jeannette Armstrong situates Annharte’s work alongside that of her contemporaries through an appeal to lyricism:

Some of Annharte's work encodes performance... In "Coyote Columbus Café," Annharte suggests the smoky, subversive atmosphere of the cabaret. Duncan Mercredi evokes the smoke-filled bar and the blues. Other poets turn on the music. Rock and hip-hop are becoming elements in some of Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm's poems, and she and Gregory Scofield, and Joanne Arnott work with traditional song forms… (Armstrong in Armstrong, Grauer (Eds.) 2001, xvi)

Unlike the work of Louise Halfe, Annharte’s poetry conforms less to expectations of

âtayôhkêwina – aadizookewin but is instead more formally recognizable as the retelling of events or âcimowina - dibaajimowin. If this is the case Annharte’s writing may still be understood as having an âtayôhkêwina – aadizookewin poetic style although being formally and technically closer related to âcimowina – dibaajimowin. That is through the agile orientation of concepts her writing expresses some of the same aesthetic

221 reflections as does the aadizookewin of The Ojibwa Texts. In addition, Annharte has spoken of her personal connection to poetry:

I remember reading poetry when I was in one of my phases of being a battered woman, this is when I was married. I used to go to the university and read and read. This was one of my only solaces, being in a world where words counted and they were beautiful. They weren't lies, which is what I was experiencing in my relationship. I learned to associate poetry with this place of protection, a place of safety. (Annharte interviewed by Pauline Butling in Butling and Rudy (Eds.) 2005, 99)

In this sense, poetry does not work as narrative medicine for the audience and readership alone, but also for the poet herself. That is, Annharte sought out conceptual spaces in literature which provided sanctuary and the room to move about freely in her own mind without risk of injury. This in turn made possible the promise of intellectual growth and emotional support. The truthfulness of books that she perceived, also provided a sense of security and sanity when compared to her troubled relationship where she suffered emotionally from dealing with deception and duplicity. In a manner of speaking, books became her houses of healing.

In her writing Annharte continually challenges the reader to look carefully at his or her own personal realities and presuppositions regarding race. Her narrative medicine explores approaches to knowledge and perspective that simultaneously reveal the unkempt backstage of the colonial project while encouraging the reader towards an informed empowerment, one made possible even within the labyrinthine arcade of corrupted urban power structures. As a medicine her work imparts the ability to discern illusion from reality and colonial seduction from actuality. Very plainly, the ailment

Annharte’s narrative medicine contradicts is the poisoning that comes from colonial

222 illusion. Her medicine is one that reinforces healthy sexuality and a humorous outlook.

It does this also by emphasizing clarity of vision and critical awareness as relates to even the smallest assertions of colonial pseudo-realities.

Annharte’s writing additionally alleviates some of the pain of colonial cruelty through transformational humour similar to that found in Gaagigebinesi’s

‘Wemisaakwaa, Clothed-In-Fur’ (in Jones (Etd.) 1919, 206-240). Erotic humor runs throughout this story as two young women pursue Wemisaakwaa, Clothed-In-Fur who finds them irritating, and his ability to transform his body into the shape of a ball is what saves him finally from their advances. This complements further directed criticism with steadfast debwewin132, a commitment to uncompromising truthfulness. In doing so,

Annharte renews ancestral Anishnaabe erotic humour while reinforcing ideas surrounding the maintenance and stewardship of healthy sexuality.

Annharte’s publication history involves several articles, children’s plays and the poetry books. Pauline Butling, regarding Exercises in Lip Pointing (2003) relates:

A third poetry collection, Blueberry Canoe, was announced in 2001 but did not appear. Annharte withdrew the manuscript in order to revise it. It became Exercises in Lip Pointing (2003), a collection of hard hitting, mostly narrative poems that often speak the unspeakable in terms of violence, injustices and abuses of power against First Nations people... (Butling in Butling and Rudy (Eds.) 2005, 91)

132 Here debwewin refers to an Anishnaabe community value of a kind related to that which the Seven Grandfather Teachings attempt to describe. In short, grounded honesty in both private and public spheres is reinforced to the point of being ingrained. In my opinion Anishnaabeg broadly understand that ideas must always must be met, with deliberate critical consciousness. This is due to the widespread recognition that ideology has direct physical consequence whereas regards personal and community mental health and wellbeing. As any idea no matter how innocuous seeming can cause benefit or harm, Anishnaabe and Cree individuals alike cultivate a strong and deliberate critical awareness when relating to ideologies of any origin. This critical awareness becomes especially apparent when conversations occur that carry a high degree of implication, assumption or speculation. Anishnaabeg simply cannot afford to go along with assertions made by any party given the long history of deception and the toxic imposition of harmful ideologies. Aside from dealing with colonial thought, calculated deliberation reflects best practices as related to living a balanced and vibrant life.

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Exercises in Lip Pointing has three parts: Memory Fishes (3), Red Noise (29), and

Coyotrix Recollects (61). It is not a long book, but it is very rich, evocative of some of the writing of Louise Halfe, Jeannette Armstrong, Gerald Vizenor, and Ingrid Washinawatok among others.

As with Louise Halfe’s three works, each of Annharte’s books builds on the previous. The first books by both authors have a clarity of intention that comes across with greater acuity and artfulness over time. Like Louise Halfe, Annharte does not play to expectation but instead speaks directly from personal truths and life experience in a resolutely centered manner. In this way she has developed a means to defy would-be imposed colonial illusions to decidedly create space for playfully curious contemplations of reality. In accordance, Louise Halfe and Annharte recognize a kindness not clouded by caricatures of pity or mercy, and neither author’s social critique finds itself marred or eclipsed by zealousness or sensationalism.

Resonant with the concepts and themes found in the Ojibwa Texts, Exercises in

Lip Pointing shares in a similar mix of humour, gravity, and perceptive reorientation.

The Ojibwa Texts align with Annharte’s poetry on several points. Firstly, each respects the importance of jubilant disruption and the proposal of humorous redirection so as to challenge the reader or listener to reason independently of expectation or the confinements of colonial thought. Playful chaos occurs in The Ojibwa Texts throughout volume one, almost all of the stories from which have to do with Nenabozho. In Volume

II, though different persons inhabit the narratives, shock humor and erotic humor of the kind revealed in ‘Wemisaakwaa, Clothed in Fur’ (Gaagiigebinesii in Jones (Etd.) 1919,

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206-240) permeate the stories also. This exuberant unpredictability frees up an audience to have an embodied experience of the stories along with cultivating a learning environment that is relaxed and free of judgment. If negotiated with strong personal boundaries in literature, erotic playfulness can help to heal those who have suffered from sexual injury or have been made to associate sexuality with shame as was common in residential school. In this way gleeful disruption might serve as medicine. In general however playful unbalancing creates an environment of trust where conversations that otherwise might create tension to a degree where communication would be impossible can occur anyway. Employing humor while talking about racism or colonialism can be especially effective in this way.

Secondly, each agrees that reality evokes humor naturally and part of a complete experience of good living involves the ability to recognize what is funny in one’s life or surroundings. Thirdly, Annharte’s writing mirrors the Ojibwa Texts by illustrating vibrant families living in a present, active, agentic landscape as in Gaagigebinesi’s

‘Wemisaakwaa - Clothed-In-Fur,’ (in Jones (Etd.) 1919, 206-240) ‘The Boy That Was

Carried Away By a Bear,’ (in Jones (Etd.) 1919, 271-278) and Gaagigebinesiikwe’s ‘The

Youth Who Died and Came Back to Life’ (in Jones (Etd.) 1919, 3-22). Annharte understands her own poetic practice, as does Louise Halfe, as a continuation or renewal of Anishnaabe ancestral literature. Annharte’s writing as dibaajimowin tempered by aadizookewin shaping suggests, if not a unity in the spectrum, a continuum and circle of narrative approach, then a narrative approach that takes strong influence from earlier forms. Combining this with how the Ojibwa Texts stories seem to defy linear

225 constructions of time further suggests the possibility that the two processes of narrative, that of the Ojibwa Texts authors and that of Annharte’s poetry, are in some ways part of the same narrative tradition. Let us recall that tradition has always been modern – it has always been people innovating resourceful living in the present moment. Without the rigid conscriptions of modernity versus traditionalism, the distinctions between Annharte’s use of humor and eroticism mixed with abstract thinking and that of the humor, eroticism, and abstract thinking characteristics of the

Ojibwe Texts fall away. Of the relationship between Anishnaabe older and newer creative narrative works, Anishnaabe educator Lawrence Gross argues in “The Comic

Vision of Anishinaabe Culture and Religion”:

Once it is understood that the worldview of the Anishinaabe is essentially comic, the comic vision can be used to show continuity between traditional and modern culture. Further, an understanding of the comic vision can help explain how Anishinaabe culture is recovering in the wake of what I call "Post Apocalypse Stress Syndrome." Along with many other Native American peoples, the Anishinaabe have seen the end of our world, which has created tremendous social stresses. The comic vision of the Anishinaabe is helping us overcome that trauma and helps explain how we are managing to survive. (Gross, 2002 1)

The things that are most accurately ancestral are those that often take the longest to describe. Such descriptions usually require an involved dibaajimowin practice, a prolonged relation of community and individual life experience. In order to get at ideas that have no names, or whose names fail to capture the essence of the ideas, those thought patterns can only be described by outlining the space around them. They are like rays of sunlight that can only be seen when a fog or mist comes across them. Older thought patterns, say for example what we name here as relationality or kinship, can be

226 best described by relating long stories rich in kinship, like Neal McLeod's Cree Narrative

Memory (2007), Alex Haley's Roots (1976), or Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred

Years of Solitude. “Kinship” to continue the example, is only a word. Understanding what it means requires long, involved attention to the life experiences of individuals, families and communities.

Annharte’s work has a narrative style unique to her voice while also influenced by ancestral Anishnaabe thinking. It shares the same attention to intellectual freedom and complimentarity of critical attention that the Ojibwa Texts expresses.133 Where

Ojibwa Texts spoke of layered intertwined worlds in “The Youth Who Died and Came

Back to Life,” (Gaagigebinesiikwe in Jones (Etd.) 1919, 3-20) Annharte speaks of layered intertwined worlds when revealing the concealed nightmares of colonialism’s backstage

– its prisons, streets, social services bureaucracy, reservation bureaucracy, covert racism and so on. In ‘The Youth Who Died and Came Back to Life,’ the young man traveled to where the dead live. The ancestral spirits he encountered went about their day in a way that seemed to parallel the way living people go about their day. That world to which he went seems to have been superimposed over or placed next to the world of the living

– each reality in some way influencing and reflecting the other. Annharte in the

133 We may do well to practice levity when considering the accomplishments of individual authors. It is often the case in literary criticism to thoughtlessly attribute individual authors’ accomplishments to their nation. This mistake results in the unintentional unconscious debasement of one’s achievements although such may be well intended by the critic. A nation’s accomplishments are simply the sum of the successes of that nation’s individuals, each one hard fought, each achievement sought through great effort. In this case if we credit Annharte as an Anishnaabe writer alone, intending respect to the nation, if taken too far we may fail to acknowledge her own effort in developing her own unique and particular narrative medicine. Every narrative artist that preceded her in all of the many lines of background her family and Anishnaabe communities include had to exert considerable effort in developing and maintaining their skills. The critic then has the responsibility to see him or herself as part of the community of readers that benefits from the gifts of a given author’s medicine. Once this is recognized the tendency to be righteously resolute in critical analysis recedes in favor of deliberation and painstaking consideration of ideas.

227 subsection of Exercises in Lip Pointing ‘Red Noise’, describes that similarly Anishnaabeg have learned to live and travel in social and physical spaces where death is ever-present.

Whether in the form of police brutality, sexual violence, lateral violence, hierarchical violence, reflective violence, addiction or well-meaning soul-predation enacted by missionaries, proponents of conventional ‘education’, and social services ad nauseum, or violence to the land - all of these represent forms of death or danger Anishnaabeg and relative peoples have been forced to continually navigate and confront. That these realities could exist in plain view of more mainstream peoples without being perceived resonates strongly with the idea of multilayered worlds in the Ojibwa Texts. In “An

Account of Tourist Terrorism,” Annharte points to the relevance of multilayered worlds:

What is history and what did happen is a deeper question than tourists dumping dollars in an empty memorial. The words not written on the plaque or between the lines are ghostwritten graffiti. (Annharte 2003, 29)

In the final line: ”between the lines are ghostwritten graffiti” the author plays on words where instead of retaining its conventional meaning, “ghostwriting” means: ‘written by ghosts’. In this way when we see historical plaques along the side of the road talking about the history of a place these generally recognize some industrial or military achievement directly contributing to the aggrandizement of empire – an implied and seductive myth in itself. The words not written on the plaque are the truth that would be spoken if the dead had written them, that is, if those murdered in the name of manifest destiny or empire had written them. Annharte understands that they are there as glaring absences, visible to those who know to look for such things. Gerald

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Vizenor’s express a similar lifelong emphasis on reading absence patterns in Postindian

Conversations (1999):

Anishinaabes are the real, the ironies of the real, and an unnamable sense of presence, but simulations are the absence, and so the indian is an absence, not a presence. You see, indians are simulations of the discoverable other... The postindian is after the simulation, and the sense of an Anishinaabe presence is both resistance and survivance. So the presence of the postindian teases the reader to see the absence, the simulation of the other as a problem. (Vizenor in Vizenor and Lee 1999, 85)

In a similar way, Annharte intends that one can learn to read absences and negative space, understanding what is not said to be as much a source for information as what is said. This is based on the premise that what is not said, or what is not written on a plaque or in a history textbook represents whether purposeful or unconscious, a telling avoidance - evidence of a power structure wishing to paint an image of itself in the minds of its subjects that may be more favorable than actual. The grain silos for example at Midland show a Jesuit missionary amicably facing an Anishnaabe man. What this picture does not show is a glaring absence: Anishnaabeg have never been in total agreement, as the image would have us believe, with the intentions or presence of

Jesuits on their land. Initial contact may have been relatively peaceful, but when it became apparent that missionaries were participating in divisive rhetoric, pitting neighbor against neighbor, their image rapidly declined. At Chimnissing for example, annuity payments circa 1911 were denied those that refused to convert to Christianity, effectively dividing the community against itself.134

134 From a letter written by Henry Jackson, Secretary to Non-treaty Indians to H. Bennet Esquire M.P. December 5 1911. The document was brought to my attention by local artist and community member Clayton King.

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In Ojibwa Texts Episode I of ‘Wemiisaakwaa, Clothed in Fur’, (Gaagigebinesi in

Jones (Etd.) 1919, 207) the themes of kinship and land emerged. This story also had to do in no small measure with erotic humour, as the two sisters pursued the young man they both admired exhaustingly. In the poem “Blueberry Canoe” Annharte relates a similarly exuberant pursuit:

flirty wind tugged at her blanket whispered “lets play” she told him “go away I fast for my vision” tucked the blanket ends around her knees (Annharte 2003, 7)

This is funny clearly, as the implication is that one must be somewhat desperate in order to use the pretext of a fast to justify avoiding an amorous advance. Here, the reader might remember that in Anishnaabewaki, the wind rising up from the earth into a woman’s body may cause her to carry a child as happens in the Ojibwa Texts: ‘The Birth of Nenabohzo’ (Waasaagoneshkang in Jones (Etd.) 1919, 3). In this story the western wind is blowing ningaabii’an, and that wind causes the woman to become pregnant. So, sexuality, erotica and humor appear as separate but related threads interwoven into the fabric of both Annharte’s writing and the Ojibwa Texts with a similar ease, naturalness, and poetic vibrancy.

In “Medicine Lines: The Doctoring of Story and Self,” Annharte writes that one path to personal healing is to help cure someone or something else: “To doctor a story means to doctor one' s self.” (Annharte 1994, 117) By caring for a garden or for an injured or sick animal or person individuals may inadvertently heal themselves. In the same way, by caring for a story, by passing it on and breathing into it new life, poets

230 may empower and heal both self and audience. It may well be that in caring for a story, by renewing it, the author helps to heal or reinvigorate in some way the aadizookaan behind the story, and in this way would be caring for and healing a living being.

Ideally in Anishnaabewaki and in Cree country for that matter, one’s sense of community responsibility comes from vibrant living and the joy of self-determination. If an individual lives accordingly, he or she may come up against oppressive systems, yet the conversations that ensue will eventually tend to change those harmful systems and related thought patterns into more beneficent forms. In “Prisoner from my Poem”

Annharte recalls when one of her uncles was arrested:

I’m from a skid row amusement park. I’ve seen the cinch pinch an authentic cop show down to drunk Indian arrest. Back them my uncle flat on his back on the sidewalk said his name was King George VI. Making us laugh. They poked him with billy clubs but they didn’t do the RCMP jig on him. (Annharte 2003, 50)

These acts of defiance to authority exhibited by Annharte's uncle provide example of individuals invoking humour in times of resistance as a way of curbing the anxiety of the moment. Additionally Annharte’s uncle throughout this event likely closed the circuit between Anishnaabeg and colonial authority so to speak, creating a meaningful conversation simultaneous with confrontation between the two parties. Using the title of an English King in a way fits because it is clear Annharte’s uncle has self-respect, but on the other hand there is such a great distance between how conventional Canadian society views English royalty and Anishnaabeg as to allow the joke to play on this disconnect or tension. In any case, if someone can laugh and get others to laugh at times of difficulty then it becomes proof to all of a shared humanity, as is it evidence to

231 one’s self and one’s family that despite apparent challenges, circumstances are manageable. The aadizookaanag, the spirit beings of stories, as they travel through stories, moving along with the narrative flow, maybe at times changing direction or moving over onto a different set of currents, often create a sense that despite challenges, an intuitive approach where one is quick to laugh can be in many cases a pragmatic approach to survival. This is especially true of the elder brother stories of the kind found in Volume I of Ojibwa Texts (1917). In these stories regardless of challenge or desperation there remains an air of exuberance and possibility.

Though subtle, Annharte’s poetry reminds us of the layered realities that exist, among these the reality of the beauty of existence, wherein one might yet experience aspects of mino-bimaadiziwin. Slowly over the course of the book, her poetry takes the time to rough out a sketch of the edges of the realities she experiences. By the end of

Exercises in Lip Pointing the reader has fair sense of a kind of silhouette of a much broader set of circumstances, of the conceptual and emotional spaces that exist between colonial imposition and Anishnaabe thought. There are in Annharte’s work, descriptions of good living that might still be attainable even given the long trespass of colonialism. These convey a distinct sense of joy and embrace of life. In “Auntie I

Dream,” Annharte illustrates how good life can be:

my rainbow dream has three sisters they clean white fish on the sand shore we kids watch them scrape off scales fish writhe flip over and lift tails scales stick to skin tiny lake mirrors catch sparkles throw shimmer into eyes

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a rainbow arcs over busy aunties grandchildren tumble on blanket legs over legs kick up shells sticky fingers reach for hands touch face, lips hair, ears and nose I listen for each excited heart beat (Annharte 2003, 4)

Annharte, though known for discussions of urban settings, does not seem to focus on separating Anishnaabewaki into urban and rural spheres. In this passage she refers to a rural envisioning of family while fluidly transitioning from this into talking again about urban environments. Formal delineations and boundaries emerge against the backdrop of Annharte’s writing as colonial superfluity, the excess ordering of the conceptual and physical worlds so as to facilitate control of people. It would seem from all of this that to Annharte, the world is the world and whether city or country there is still the earth below and the sky above. Although in cities the overwhelming presence of human beings eclipses the presence of the land, there are birds in both places and there are insects. All of the building materials that make up cities come from the ground and there as in the country all that makes up the living earth is still present.

The idea of independent, revitalized renewal of the old ways runs throughout

Louise Halfe's work as does it ground much of Annharte's poetry. The Ojibwa Texts describe not so much an ideal physical mino-bimaadiziwin but a life-of-the-mind that favors an erotic humour alongside playful re-orderings of possibility and perception.

Remember the final scene of Gaagigebinesi’s ‘Wemisaakwa, Clothed-In-Fur’ (in Jones

(Etd.) 1919, 214-215) wherein the young man transforms into a ball, and the women who pursued him desperately rub themselves on it guessing, but not knowing it is him.

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Here the world appears malleable - both in terms of physical nature and eroticism.

Similarly Annharte weaves two distinct threads together, cross-examining colonial illusion through a playful and sometimes erotic vibrancy - an ever-dynamic and ever becoming life-of-the-mind.

Strong identity means that one has a sense of community, importance and control over what happens. Annharte relates: “For me, maintaining an Indian identity is a struggle.” (Annharte 1994, 115) This comment has two threads. On the one hand

‘Indian’ identity is inaccurate insofar as her own family is mixed Anishnaabe and

European descent, and ‘Indian-ness’ tends to inappropriately generalize all Indigeneity, something which Annharte again like Gerald Vizenor reinforces throughout her work.

Building on his concept of simulation, Gerald Vizenor says in Postindian Conversations

(1999):

The word indian, for instance, is the most common simulation of manifest manners. Actually, you know about my insistence that the word be printed in italics. Consider the burden of the name indian, and other names that modify the simulation, such as chippewa indian. The natives who must bear these names are known, in their own language, as the anishinaabe. Obviously, the name indian perpetuates manifest manners… (Vizenor in Vizenor and Lee 1999, 156)

In this case manifest manners refers to the way in which societies behave when acting from a the belief in Manifest Destiny, or the idea that God having determined all things intends whatever action occurs, thereby justifying any cruelty. Manifest Destiny societies often create identity crises involving profound dissociation and disorientation of Indigenous people from themselves. For one, the individual often must endure a lifelong barrage of imagery and ideology that suggests that his or her Anishnaabe

234 identity could have existed only in the past. The sense of personal absence, that one’s soul has been replaced by an emptiness or by something foreign can result in an internal struggle that can cost a person her or his life. A reinvigoration of Anishnaabe identity can happen through a medicine related aadizokewin, narrative artistry, whether dreaming, prayer, visioning, or in Annharte’s case writing:

The "medicine line" is a boundary line between groups, or perhaps, it may designate a division of territories. Examining ways storytelling constitutes a vital link to the oral traditions is crucial to being an Indigenous writer. The "medicine line" might not simply be a linear extension of a story "told" to a story "written." The direction of the "line" might also spiral up or down. I see this "medicine line" as what connects me as a writer to the most intangible elements of a culture I struggle to understand. (Annharte 1994, 114)

In this short passage, Annharte directly identifies the existence of a relationship of narrative artistry to ancestral medicine. That medicine lines need not be linear extensions of spoken stories to written ones, that they may spiral up or down, suggests something about the path spoken stories may take before reaching print. The upward spiral points to the feeling of finding oneself through stories that can occur that is accompanied by a sense of elation. The downward spiral indicates that profound sadness and depression should not be discounted as a feeling that accompanies self- discovery through stories, that both emotions exist for a reason and may mean that a person is on the right track to reconnecting with ancestral thought. Annharte as a storyteller, continually looks for those connections to Anishnaabe life and thought. She also listens to and looks for fragments or frayed threads of older thought patterns that she may wish to revisit, mend or re-orient into new forms.

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In addition medicine lines are boundaries and ‘may designate a division of territories’. So in addition to leading somewhere, almost contradictorily or ironically, medicine lines indicate where one narrative territory begins and another leaves off. The storying territories Annharte hints at seem to have to do with experiential memory, places of ancestral thought. This suggests almost a topography of ancestral narrative - that within the consciousness of a people, narratives exist as though they were headwaters or natural springs coming from deep under the ground. A person’s storied life may in this way be understood metaphorically in terms of landscape or watershed.

At Black River Falls Wisconsin, a rock quarry exists that has over time filled back in with water from natural springs. At the bottom of the quarry is a forest of bone-like trees, those that grew between the time the machines left and when the pit filled in with water. A person’s narrative being is much like this - the water represents the older stories while the pit stands for the effects of colonialism. The water, those old narratives, may have seemed absent at times due to the influence of residential school and the reservation and reserve systems but they were always present in the dreams of people, much like the water was always present in and around the quarry in the surrounding water table.

Where the authors of the Ojibwa Texts may have intended resistance to impending invasive imposed imagery, Annharte relates:

I guess our memories are getting bleached out by the implanting of colonized images of ourselves. We are now taught Native Studies, which has been developed by white experts. Sure, the ndn was an informant... We did not author our own texts, apparently. Our own writings and viewpoints were not being published. Maybe what I am protesting too

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much is that ndn writers are still often taken to be informants. (Annharte in Annharte, Grauer 2006, 123)

Here the writer reinforces the idea that the so-called ‘informants’ of the Ojibwa Texts and Plains Cree Texts are misnamed. Instead they are the works' true original authors, though their names do not make it on the book covers. The false images Annharte points to here are what Gerald Vizenor in Postindian Conversations (1999) calls

'simulations' - internalized and acted upon, but externally originating stereotypes.

Of the missteps most likely to occur in teaching older Anishnaabe texts, one stands out. Of the original recording of the old stories, Annharte has the following to say; this is a response to ethnographic texts generally, not specifically the Ojibwa Texts:

It is difficult to disagree with the idea of "salvaging" stories. This call sanctified most anthropological data despite ethnocentric bias toward tribal histories. But I see this merely as an attempt to fossilize the stories. The process of recording them is like the fixative used by the avid entomologist. (Annharte 1994, 115-116)

When applied strictly to the Ojibwa Texts, this would suggest only that we should not take any of the recorded versions of stories to be definitive. Accepting a fixed or frozen dibaajimowin or aadizokewin practice means accepting an overly rigid understanding of storytelling. That is if we take the stories in the Ojibwa Texts or Plains Cree Texts to be absolute, we risk overlooking all of the other versions of the stories and the idea of narrative as a living, changing process as opposed to a set of literary or fixed oratorical artifacts. It is also possible that by this statement Annharte means that having been fossilized by the recording process, the stories have been so badly de-contextualized as to be of questionable use.

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Older recorded narratives such as the Plains Cree Texts (1934), Sacred Stories of the Sweet Grass Cree (1930) and the Ojibwa Texts (1917, 1919) contain little direct mention of colonialism, oppression, or any of the bitter cruelties people had suffered up until that time and continued to suffer throughout the timeframe in which the stories were recorded. A question that Annharte pursues related to this absence has to do with whether contemporary purist stances might at times do ancestral thought harm by insisting on cemented, frozen-in-time imaginings of self and community. Of this she relates:

I do enjoy the mention of cultural purity but I quickly get bored because it does not seem to have anything to do with the hodge-podge reality that makes up my world. I want to find those "medicine lines" that heal the emptiness and loneliness that I sometimes feel because of how true the stereotypes of Natives have become. (Annharte 1994, 115)

Chaotic realities coming together approximates Anishnaabeness as much as any claim to a singular way of being. That having been said, the adaptability to chaos that Annharte expresses and practices seems to be a trait of Anishnaabeness. At the same time

Annharte seems to be reaching for an original source, a wellspring of ancestral thought that can be found through her dreams, and through her writing, itself a kind of dreaming.

The danger arising in teaching fixed versions of aadizookewin, whose original intent seems to have been at times to teach a humorous mind, an awe inspire-able mind, an adaptive mind and a critical mind, is that these teaching points could be replaced by a new unquestionable will and testament, a new infallible fundamentalism of frozen-in-time imagery. Instead, Annharte intimates this voice: “I hear the story with

238 the ears of a grandchild. The Grandmother voice is a "medicine line" which stretches across the generations.” (Annharte 1994, 114) Also:

Underneath it all, I hear my Grandmother's voice and see her face near mine. The word used by children is coo coo. It is short for the more lengthy expression, kookum or what I sometimes prefer to say as nokomis, or "little grandmother." It just might be that grandmother and grandchild are truly equals as it seems to be in some Indigenous cultures. Each of us who hear a story in this way is a little grandmother. (Annharte 1994, 115)

Annharte continues: “I think the Grandmother's voice is influenced by the harsher realities of life.” (Ibid, 115) Following this one step further, the ancestral voice is born not of easy living but out of lifetimes of struggle. It is a voice of grounded-ness and clarity that cuts through adherences to title or vanity, through any subscription to cause or mania. At the centre of this voice rests compassionate inclusive kinship and at its centre, situated near kindness resides a beautiful simplicity, that of plain humour. One address that can be made reliably at high intensities of layered reality distortion, of the kind so expertly authored by empire, has to do with humour. Laly Grauer explains the origin of the paper “A Weasel Pops In and Out of Old Tunes: Exchanging Words" (2006) at the outset: “When I was invited to give a paper on Marie Annharte Baker’s poetry for the conference ‘For the Love of Words: Aboriginal Writers of Canada,’ I asked Annharte if she would participate with me on this project. We wrote and delivered the paper together — two voices presenting readings of some of her poems, partly responding to each other, partly overlapping, following our own trains of thought.” In this joint project

Annharte says:

The therapeutic tool I employ is humour which verges on the edge of outrageous/excessiveness. In art, I express a vision of personal change

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and accept myself as wounded but on the mend. ‘I am my art’ is the popular saying which encompasses all. (Annharte in Annharte, Grauer 2006, 117)

In this passage healing comes about by being or living the cure, in this case humour. It is this direct physical experience of laughter that transforms the self. One might say that stewardship of the story through humour, reflects back on the soul of the teller-author.

Likewise, if the soul of the story and the story keeper have become somehow inextricably linked then a positive effect to one equals a positive effect on the other, a separation of the “one” and the “other” being only illusory to begin with.

Ojibwa Texts and Exercises in Lip Pointing each build, keep, maintain and protect a kind of emotional safe-house, where the authors encourage a free, adaptive, independent and vibrant consciousness. Whether working around expectations of

English poetry proper or intending stewardship of traditional storytelling, each narrative artist whether Annharte, Gagiige-binesii, Gagiige-binesiikwe, Midasakoonj,

Wasagonekang, or Majigaaboo, cultivate a balanced celebration-of-existence to an open contemplative conceptual-emotional space. In both Annharte’s poetry and these Bois

Forte community members’ stories, each temper planes of innovative thought complete with erotic humour, layered understandings of existence, and high esteem granted to the ability to see many kinds of beauty in reality. The old stories of Lake Superior,

Chigaaming ‘The Far Crossing’ in this way resemble those of Annharte. The old stories never became fixed in their tellings though their presence on the printed page might seem to say this, and neither are anything but fixed in form now when coming through the voices of poets.

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5.2 Relationality and the Land in 'Stay Out Of The Woods'

Looking at some of her earlier work will allow the reader to appreciate how

Annharte’s style has changed over time, and how her earlier work formed the foundations for her current writing. Pauline Butling relates: “Annharte began writing in high school but did not publish until the 1980s. With the publication of her first book

Being on the Moon (1990) she emerged as a major figure in the articulation of race and gender issues and in the development of an innovate race poetics.” (Butling and Rudy

(Eds.) 2005, 90) Annharte in Being on the Moon (1990) begins 'Stay Out Of The Woods'

(11)135: “These woods I know are mine/rock faces stare out at me”. Shapes in rocks may have at times appeared to the paranoid explorer as hostile. To Annharte they provide company and affirm Anishnaabe place in the land. In these the city appears often as a kind of wilderness in its own right, and therefore indigeneity may find place there as well as in the backwoods. The city also becomes a study of an imposed thought-scape, realized by architecture. On the other hand petroglyphs for example those near

Wshkiigimang, Curve Lake suggest that the land is peopled by narrative traditions that unlike colonial impositions work with the land fluidly. In a talk by Manitoulin elder Edna

Manitowabi in 2006 at these petroglyphs, she confirmed what both Manitoulin elder

Shirley Ida Williams, and Curve Lake elder gidaagaa-migizi ‘Osprey’ Doug Williams also felt, that the rocks themselves speak the stories of the ancestors. Some of the petroglyphs in this case were said to be the aadizookaanag, the spirit beings of the stories while others were images some of the events that occurred in them. Annharte

135 In this chapter where recurrent excerpts are from the same poem, the page number may be iterated only once as it is distractingly redundant to repeat the same citation.

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“blasted out for the train/cursed they swear original” (11). The rock faces, blasted out to make a route for the tracks curse not only at the original injury but also at the ongoing trespassing of so many disrespectful persons passing by unhindered.

colours given green with rust ochre streaks moss patches frozen lake with coarse veins

That the frozen lake has veins binds the imagery of the human body with that of the land. In this way the poet establishes a sense of presence, that the earth is alive.

eagle flying over the train might clench feet for warmth or choose not to wear out her grip on two months pests

The close and careful consideration of the way an eagle might keep its feet warm, points to a strong awareness of and respect for animals. This kind of consideration tells the reader that what animals do matters to the lives of people. They are not incidental to the lives of human beings, they are fundamental.

Again the rocks in their own way speak: “Guess to whom the woods belong/rock faces scream leave us alone” This would mean again that the woods belong to those that would respect them, and also that the land itself tires of disrespect. Continuing

Annharte writes: “the city people don't know much/bush is outside lakes of shapes”

People who dwell in the city do not necessarily disrespect out of spite but out of complicit or passive ignorance. In any case the offending parties are not conscious offenders and so they maybe are more deserving of consideration than of condemnation. That is how might they be convinced to see the results of their actions.

Continuing: “skinny jack pine holding a rock/his cone blown far from memory/he

242 shades his rock temple base.” This tree has an awareness of its own, the land itself, maybe a mountain on the side of which it grows, is its own temple, its own church.

the silence of the angular months picking on you in this church

The angularity of a month may be the way that resolute change comes with each month. This strong resolution is highlighted by the Anishnaabe yearly round. In each moon, a distinct change is noted.

Annharte's work differs from Louise Halfe's work in many respects. One of these has to do with the compartmentalization of ideas. Though all of Annharte's books may be said to represent the continuation of a single long personal meditation or prolonged contemplative critical-celebratory state, each poem individually seems fairly concretely separable from the others. The themes from one poem to the next shift markedly, whereas Louise Halfe's poems are more likely to blend into one another, her three works Bear Bones and Feathers (1994), Blue Marrow (1998/2004 – two very different editions), and The Crooked Good (2007) forming more of a continuous prayer-song or ever-transforming epic poem.

From some of the Annharte’s formative poetry the land is understood as alive.

The rocks themselves carry awareness of their own as do they carry stories and memory. These themes continue throughout her work and resonate with Anishnaabe ancestral thought.

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5.3 The Mirror, The Extended Hand

One of Annharte’s mashkikii-dibaajimowin if you will, her ‘telling of events’ kind of narrative medicine approaches has to do with holding up a mirror to the colonial minded and to extending a hand in aid to colonial purveyors as sharing in the injury of colonialism instead of being seen only as rewarded by it. Throughout the following as all citations are from the same poem, no repetitive page numbers appear. In Exercises in Lip Pointing (2003) subsection “Red Noise”, in the poem “How to Write About White

People” (56) the extended hand appears through inversion or imagined reenactments of many of the subtler colonial offences against Anishnaabeg being endured instead by the colonist:

How to Write About White People From a distance and keep them outside. Even if it seems cruel to do that. (56)

Anthropological, historical, ecclesiastical, institutional rhetoric and even the poetry of

Duncan Campbell Scott and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow have always othered

Anishnaabeg. Othering sometimes became severe to the point where one did not know where the imaginings of the colonial self placed upon the imagined images of the other began and where the simple truth of willful ignorance left off. This passage brings light to colonial othering by suggesting its opposite. Often a reversal of roles brings attention to the absurdity of commonplace albeit accepted colonial practices, invisible until one appreciates their absurdity when presented in his or her own familiar context.

The Inner Trojan fears kept them Talking too much about the country they took. Look how rats took over their greedy stores. (56)

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That same original intent survives to the present although it has become clear that straightforward kind and honest directness represents only one means of attempting understanding across great conceptual difference. Given the profound psychological illness of the colonist, much of which has been passed to Anishnaabeg, other more complex narrative medicines and rhetorical approaches are needed.

Annharte’s narrative medicine then represents direct honest kindness, albeit transformed by necessity into different rhetorical modes – inversions and mirroring representing only a few of these.

The white chief told me he ran from the city… Inoculations were frequent. They tried every day to kill him. Psychology was what they called the war. Laboratory used to be his first name. He changed his address after the millennium. (56)

In this case the “white chief” is both a Euro-American man and he is a rat now escaping the laboratory of war resident in both urban environments (such as the hostile semi- concealed racist environment of Winnipeg) and the stated formal theaters of war. The city became then an experiment looking for what might work best in causing people to acquiesce to the militarism inherent to every fiber of the nation-state, invisible though it may come to seem after so much time surrounded by it.

In the subsection “Coyotrix Recollects”, a clear nod to the transformational elder brother beings, and a point of resonance with the aadizookaanag such as those of the

Ojibwa Texts, in the poem “Write Off” (Annharte 2003, 67), the agency of the aadizookaanag comes to light momentarily as does the prominence of

Anishnaabemowin. In addition the way in which relationality emerges affectionately

245 appears amidst the description of an elder brother transformational being. That this person, maybe a relative or only a friend, would be a “write off” itself is a deep and pointed criticism of the urban society, as the character described is clearly anything besides. The subject of this poem teaches respect for aadizookaanag:

…he told me scary stories

made me respect

watch out watch out bear walk (67)

The poem at this point acts as a dibaajimowin retelling events surrounding aadizookewin. The complexity of genre here becomes one layer deeper as now dibaajimowin retells events surrounding aadizookewin delivered with aadizookewin- esque poetic inflection. In the poem, the bear walk is aadizookaan, a spirit of an old story and this man has carried the aadizookaan, a clearly honored and valued practice in

Anishnaabemowin.

All of these passages describe something of Annharte’s mashkikiidibaajimowin.

Her narrative medicine again aligns itself more closely with the telling of events of the dibaajimowin narrative form, and has at its core the reestablishment of healthy sexuality, the dogged pursuit of sorting colonial illusion from actuality, and the recognition of individual strengths and inherent value.

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5.4 Mapping Obstacles in ‘Got Something In The Eye’.

The next conversation surrounds Annharte’s poem entire: “Got Something In

The Eye.” (Annharte, Exercises In Lip Pointing 2003, 39) Throughout the following restatement of citation is unnecessary as all citations are from the same poem, the same page likewise. The opening line - “Morbid finding a body in a ditch edge of town” - refers to a man having died of exposure by suicide or accidental death. It may also reference his having become a victim of the moonlight, or starlight tours.136 The next line continues: “Mirrored Disco ball lodged in eye socket. Glamour eyeball throws dots of light from ceiling to floor.” At the bar on the dance floor, that man is hypnotized, seduced by a life of partying that goes along with his celebrity as a writer. The disco ball, like glamour and fame dazzles and mesmerizes though not necessarily with substance and meaningful life.

The poem continues: “Swirl around in shadows. Dance round with shut eyes.”

Now the man is at the bar and dancing, drunk. These lines suggests the aadizokewin sometimes called the 'Shut Eye Dance’, wherein the transformational being tricks the geese into letting him kill them by telling them to shut their eyes and dance. (From

‘Nenabushu breaks the necks of the dancing geese’. (Gaagigebinesii in Jones (Etd.)

1917, 409) This would in an indirect way relate the man to the geese, maybe because he has been tricked into believing in the glamour of celebrity, self-blinded, willingly participating in his own death, like the geese seduced in his case, by the false promises

136 The moonlight or starlight tours refers to a form of murder by exposure practiced by the police. This refers to when police take Cree and Anishnaabe men and women and other First People out to where few live, generally at night in the wintertime, oftentimes after they have been consuming alcohol. Oftentimes the police take the victim’s coat and shoes and tell them to walk home.

247 of fame. In regards to our conversation surrounding traditional story modes, this reference to the shut eye dance correlates the poem with dibaajimowin, the telling of events around aadizookaanag, sacred stories. Somehow after being at the bar and dancing, the man either after trying to drive drunk, or possibly getting in a fight at the bar, finds himself staring at the lights on the police car, in much the same way as he looked at the disco ball. It is possible that he has lost the time in between and regains awareness in confusion, the disco ball lights having transitioned into police lights:

“Typical tumbleweed guy. That dazzle eye looks impressive on a police cruiser.

Hypnotize. Arrest. Interrogate. Chill out.” This happened the evening he died, he had some interaction with the police, and some time after he was found in the ditch.

Annharte elaborates: “Warriors on the street looking for political party. War party. Join any party since the last one wasn’t greatest ever party. Keep in mind life doesn’t have to be a party.” These lines play on the identity of ‘warrior’ and how it while on the one hand it can empower if the understanding of what it is to be a warrior is comprehensive, on the other it can also act as a trap - one where a stereotype becomes internalized. These lines strike at the heart of frivolous politics, those pursued out of aggression, or again the acting out of a stereotype. The imperative to “Keep in mind life doesn’t have to be a party,” relates to a glamour and a celebrity mentality where individuals tend to pursue one social event after another, often accompanied by drugs and alcohol. Living like this can lead to disassociation from previous priorities, general disillusionment, intensifying addictions, inability to process problems as they arise and a resulting psychological build-up of unaddressed issues.

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Annharte goes on to say: “Last time I saw him he was practicing dealer phone stance. His claim to fame was writer working on the next novel.” The dealer stance relates to how the man was trying to sell a false personae to others. Continuing: “…if he survives his celebrity status, then long live Daddy Cyclops.”137 This line refers to the destructive power of fame. As narrative medicine, rebalancing exaggerated conceptions of self with actuality establishes in both author and audience again a grounded debwewin or truthfulness. It is this truthfulness that lies at the source of Annharte’s narrative medicine potential in the first place. As we already know the outcome of the this man’s life from the opening of the poem, now we have a guess as to the cause.

Annharte continues: “Learn to become victim and statistic after one Saturday night performance.” On the one hand the man in the poem has become the victim of the false promises of glamour and celebrity, on the other he is the victim either of himself walking out to die in the ditch, a kind of suicide-by-negligence, while he is also possibly a victim of the moonlight or starlight tours. As a statistic the man is one more

Indigenous person dead from exposure and from buying into false promises.

The next lines are stated, sports-like: “advantage author, disadvantage audience”, a play on words. The author gains the advantage in that for a moment the audience may be transfixed by his death, but in that moment he is dead and so the real disadvantage belongs to him. The man may at times have had an animosity towards his

137 The mention of Daddy Cyclops also has aadizokewin resonance to some of the older giant-beings. Refer for example to Ojibwa Texts, 171. ‘The Origin of Dogs’, Gaagigebinesii in Megasiáwa William Jones (Etd.) Part II. In this story, the dog is revealed to have originated with benevolent giants, those who would call upon dogs to fight the windigo.

249 audience, not knowing if they were supportive or unsupportive, genuine admirers or his undoing in disguise. A fan-base can be supportive, but they can also be gluttonous, looking always for the next great work, never satisfied for long.

The man in this story is at least a fairly well known author in Indian Country as stated in the next lines: “Hold on. He never looked up to his own kind. Publisher cranked out Indian books. Portrait on cover made so easy to hitch a ride.”

Annharte tells us here that the man may not respect his own people, and may have come to base his own self-worth eventually not on the opinions of friends and family, but on his fans or on the opinions of critics and mainstream media. Publishers are suspect here, possibly opportunistic and disingenuous when relating to authors whose works they print. Annharte closes the poem:

The Mandan Hidatsa held two creators responsible for the mess of the world. The perfectionist located the wolf carcass full of maggots. Then he confronted the other creator about the botch job. Maybe this way someone much better at defects gets reminded of truest creation.

In the first line, that the creators are dualistic recalls of the Birth of Nenabozho. In

Ojibwa Texts ‘The Birth of Nenabushu’, (Waasaagooneshkang in Jones (Etd.) 1917, 3) two brothers quarrel over who is to be born first. In their fighting with one another they burst open their mother, killing her. Like the Mandan-Hidatsa story the brothers are at odds and most often oppose one another.

Annharte maybe relates to the misfortune and imperfection of the man she imagined. In imagining him she cautions herself and others in her situation away from could-be paths. Through his visage she ascertains what is good and valuable when perceiving life as an integrated whole while incorporating the contradictions and the

250 certainties of an individual's character. In short, the meaning of a person’s life lies not in the quick-read or the snap judgment, but in all of the details considered together, appreciating as much the questions and conflicts they result in as the ways in which they clearly help others. The man in the poem, though imagined, represents many people who have experienced the same. He is a cautionary tale and as medicine he represents a visionary look into possibilities - parallel futures where the author fears she might end up if she is not careful to look out for the understated, often invisible dangers of being an Anishnaabikwe lauded by the outside world, tempted by the wiles of fame.

Illnesses emerge as challenges to diagnosticians that may not resolve into clearly discernable causes. People like the unnamed envisioned man in the poem live in all of their imperfections, traveling paths in the semi-surreal colonial illusion so that others may benefit from the knowledge they gain. They learn of dangers and benefits of choices made, in the case of ‘Got Something in the Eye’ those surrounding the writer’s fame and celebrity. When they do not return from their journeys, that is a signal to others that different choices might yield for them a more favorable outcome. These

Anishnaabe people who experience life in this way, though the outcomes may not always be good are still family. Even when it is necessary to take action against an individual who has harmed people again and again, judgment does not necessairly follow. Instead the person is morel likely to be seen as having succumbed to illness; they still have value, worth and merit, even though their soul may be eclipsed by the influence of windigo, greed, or momentary passion.

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5.5 Temperate Absurdity in the poem “Exercises in Lip Pointing”

In the poem “Exercises in Lip Pointing” (Annharte 2007, 40-43)138 the title poem of the book of the same name by Annharte the author experiments with different styles, those reminiscent of street poetry. She also employs a multiple-read-through block text technique similar to those used by Jeannette Armstrong in Breath Tracks

(1991), a technique independently innovated by other poets as well. That is, by choosing words in order, each of which has different definitions and meanings depending on context and intent, the poet allows the reader to arrive at different meanings depending on the path they take through the words. Indentations and typesetting has been respected as much as possible while no page numbers are given as all excerpts are sequential from the same poem.

Okay today let's have the lips speak for themselves shall we let them say what they must say if asked if ever asked as if anyone ever asks just the lips to speak

Here the idea of lips talking outside of the person causes at least two reactions. On the one hand the idea of lips speaking their own mind is funny. On the other hand

Annharte’s writing exists in the greater context of authors strengthening Indigenous voice. For this reason, any intimation of something speaking that has been silent, in this case the lips, resonates with the silencing of colonialism and how important it is to continue to counteract that silencing.

138 Redundant citations to the same poem have been omitted in order to improve readability.

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Colonial silencing comes from different sources, the most apparent having to do with the undermining of people’s confidence through residential school and irresponsible formal education. So silencing has happened on the one hand to community members while concurrent with this is a kind of widespread knowledge suppression that inhibits the transfer of information from Indigenous communities to

European-descent people. It remains common after five hundred some years of inhabiting the same physical space, for westerners to have little knowledge of injustice as regards Indigenous communities. Many also have very little knowledge regarding

Anishnaabe or Cree ideology, social consciousness and integrity. All of these fields of knowledge have been muffled by colonialism in the mainstream populace so as to make institutional segregation and the reserve and reservation systems possible.

The poem ‘Exercises in Lip Pointing” much like the book entire, is as political and playful as is it experimental. It has to do with the reorientation of perspective and listening as it were with fresh ears to sounds that have always been present in the environment but have become part of the generalized wash of dismissed background noise. It is the information lost in that dismissal that so many of Annharte's poems seem to reclaim. The common spaces of our daily lives, though denigrated by a set of imposed realities that would have them reduced to the mundane, instead make up a landscape of spiritual activity, an awake and alive universe, whether the spaces described are urban or otherwise.139

139 The identification of natural patterns in urban constructions such as bridges and power-line towers in Mjikaning, Detroit Anishnaabe visual artist William Kingfisher’s work redefines urban and industrial spaces and being part of the land. The intent has to do with re-situating concrete and metal assumed non-naturalistic forms as natural, human beings being as much a part of nature and the land as other animals. The effect of this is to confirm Anishnaabe

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because the totality of a person counts more

At the risk of reading too much in, this may be an intended jab at the idea that the majority counts more and so voices in the minority tend to be dismissed.

dominates

what the lips want koochy koo lips lips pursed lips pointed full forward tilt too lip extended

This establishes the playfulness of the poem and builds on the knowledge those in

Anishnaabewaki have regarding lip pointing as a way of indicating direction. It is a way of indicating common experience or at least of demonstrating that the artist has done what she can to understand her audience; in other words that the Anishnaabe audience is of foremost importance to Annharte as a poet. That is, by talking about things such as lip pointing that a more mainstream audience might not understand, Annharte speaks directly to Anishnaabe people and those reading or hearing her poems will for that reason feel welcomed, and reflected back with a sense of familiarity and hospitality.

Simply reinforcing an individual listener or reader’s Anishnaabe presence is a gift in and of itself, a medicine supporting identity which in turn supports nationhood.

“Exercises in Lip Pointing” reflects a playfulness of the kind shared with the

Ojibwa Texts. In both instances of narrative practice, humor is braided together with seriousness, and a kind of rhythm exists where a serious topic is not dwelt upon to a viability in urban and industrial spaces reaffirming that the skills and perspectives useful in living well on the land function similarly in all spaces. As all spaces are ultimately derived from and part of the land however much of this with regards to urban and industrial spaces may seem counter-intuitive.

254 point of stressing the audience excessively before having that stress punctuated with laughter. The reason for this is consideration. It is understood by the poet that her

Anishnaabe audience continually faces unique and extreme psychological, physical and spiritual challenges that their European descent neighbors do not face day-to-day.

Stressing an Anishnaabe audience with too much gravity or seriousness can negatively affect the mind state of those in the community, so as a part of her own narrative medicine practice, Annharte incorporates this playful-serious balance, this levity in her work. This manifests as stewarding a careful development of rhythm of humour to seriousness, celebration to grave consideration.

In Anishnaabe narrative space, the weaving of humor and groundedness fits older patterns of aadizookewin storytelling. There has never been a time in Anishnaabe history where serious challenges to survival did not exist, and so there has always been a need for balance of negativity and positivity in narrative approach. Before colonialism there was still war and disease, though maybe not to the same degree. Challenges related to survival have always been present.

The poem continues:

signals watch ahead to the side either side take a peek

but don't say anything out loud to Mr Mrs Ms Authority Person in Charge

don't say aw fuck off either you bug me aw come off it enough enough that bullshit

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Here the poet shares the experience of the lips, the absurdity of lip-awareness blurring into political social consciousness, in that both she and they, the lips, have been told to be silent. The colloquial, grounded way in which Annharte appeal's to authority -

“aw come off it”- is itself modest and leveling. As any uniform or like ceremony of authority disguises a real person underneath, it is that ability to address an individual directly, circumventing title or station that Annharte demonstrates.

The block text here, similar to that used by Jeannette Armstrong in Breath Tracks

(1991), allows the reader to take different paths through a given poem. This technique enables many readings of the poem, in turn encouraging the interpretation of possibilities outside of even those intended by the poet. The presence of reality and multiplicity within a single poem incidentally reflects distantly some of the values of ancestral aadizookewin such as the many layered worlds in Ojibwa Texts 'The Youth

Who Died and Came Back to Life'. Allowing for multiple paths of interpretability resonates with ancestral aadizookewin insofar as each entrusts the reader to innovate some of the meaning of the work.

To elaborate, symbolist poetry, like Annharte's poetry here, alongside dreams, induces the potential for one to arrive at many, even sometimes contradictory, meanings in a given reading. A mind familiar with challenging circumstances where resolutions to problems remain suspended for a long time may be in the long run better equipped to deal with crises. Narrative medicine practices that encourage grounded thinking despite uncertain surroundings empower the reader to better face life challenges of all kinds. This adaptive thinking inadvertently fuels reform and revolution

256 as an empowered readership finds itself better able to face the obstacles inherent to both.

ever hear the one about what the one lip said to the other

ridiculous if ever heard one lip talk (…)

Here the poet practices rhythm balancing humour with groundedness. Invoking universally appealing humour loosens up a readership, creating a positive and safe learning environment. In this way the reader is made to feel welcome, the poem made to belong to the people of Anishnaabewaki.

Regarding this last point, in Annharte's work there are often pointed criticisms of the ways in which individuals behave, but rarely if ever does the poet condemn.

Instead, she proposes reforms and any criticisms put forward appear for the sole purpose of making Anishnaabewaki better. The poem continues:

rapid lip movements as if talking lips walking to the convenience store

back alley lips holding a cigarette unable to scream get that damn paper toxic tobacco product out of me exception none

The more the poet plays with the idea of the lips having agency and the ability to act, the more elaborate related scenarios become; there is a kind of intensifying of the same

257 repeated pattern, something like we saw in ‘Wemisaakwaa, Clothed-In-Fur’

(Gaagigebinesii in Jones (etd.) 1919, 206-240) in The Ojibwa Texts.

hey lips over there doing nothing lips don't pout grab those arrows start firing lips on the other side light a few guided missiles

to hell with Tomahawks

The poet rebalances the tone of the poem moving from talking about the lips to talking about words-as-arrows, a possible nod to Gerald Vizenor's Wordarrows (1978, 2002 – two editions). Reference to Tomahawk missiles refers to the U.S. military’s tendency to name ordinance and nuclear test detonation sites after Indigenous nations, people and artifacts. The intent here is that colonial wordplay will counteract Indigenous word- arrows with narrative poison, likely in the form of mainstream media, a media that will ultimately, despite its potential power, fail to sway the people.

Questions of audience surrounding Annharte's work suggest more broadly the question of audience for all of the work mentioned. The Ojibwa Texts and Plains Cree

Texts were told by Anishnaabeg for future Anishnaabeg, by nêhiyawak for nêhiyawak, while at the same time anthropology sought to mine them for cultural knowledge.

Louise Halfe's poems are for a mixed audience, hoping to offer pathways of healing and empowerment for Cree people while informing allies of the state of affairs surrounding continuing challenges to the Cree Nation. Annharte's work would seem to fit this same pattern that anticipates a mixed audience. She writes to encourage Anishnaabe people

258 and their allies, but as with Louise Halfe there is also the sense that she speaks to those most ignorant and harmful individuals both within and without the Anishnaabe nation.

Annharte’s poetry then like that of Louise Halfe reaches out to both Anishnaabe and universal audiences. The lips return for more action:

lips keep still mike's on quiet on set

In this and the following passages, through to the end of the poem, 'lips' seem interchangeable with 'Anishnaabeg', continuing the balanced pattern of absurdity- seriousness:

somebody might hear somebody already knows what lips to listen for what lips to look out for

In activist movements, such as the American Indian Movement, due to the incidence of external infiltrators, imposters, paid opponents, and agent provocateurs, a high degree of awareness as to the character and identity of an individual claiming ally-ship (or sometimes direct membership in AIM) necessarily existed. In “The Picture I Don't See”

Annharte relates: "...not everyone works for CSIS or CIA, I don't want everyone to be

Indian or too suspicious either..." (Annharte 2003, 15). Counter-intelligence led by the

British, Canadian, and U.S. federal governments sought to create internal factions, infighting, and general paranoia and mistrust within AIM. Many AIM people had to develop ways to counteract that poisoning of the social environment, with as Annharte demonstrates here, basic appeals to reason and even-tempered consideration. Newer

259 activist movements solve these problems by assuming counterintelligence presence and working from there. In other words, by seeing the presence of those people as an opportunity for communication, the possibility increases of counteracting the social toxicity they create.

On another note, Annharte has a special set of often refreshingly biting criticisms for an emergent prospective ally-ship in the hopes that it may better understand its own history of fickleness. All these criticisms are meant to be constructive but she does not insult the intelligence of the readership by softening her message. This would be an offense to debwewin and when considered carefully would constitute an offense to allies, assuming that they would be of too weak in character to hear the truth. Annharte continues:

snarl Elvis lips lip shake lips

lips don't betray stop that quiver stop that whimper

blubbering how many times have you lips been told to say

These lines refer to the number of times Indigenous people have been told to 'just get over it'. Again lips are the people's lips but also they are interchangeable with the people in these passages. This creates a kind of light-hearted surrealism that sustains the continued assertion of social consciousness.

now just how many of you at attention just a couple last count

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surrounded in ambush lips lots of lips surrendered

This speaks again to the combat between Indigenous Wordarrows and the counter- offensive of the mainstream media. Some casualties have been sustained, individuals

Anishnaabe or allied whose minds have been seduced by those media into believing the rhetoric behind assimilation, termination or related regressive politics. Annharte’s work here again works as mashkikiidibaajimowin in that it corrects the seductive illusion created by colonial misinformation.

lips lips hold back tighten tighten up your ranks files empty yet not one word gets through

Here she describes that despite the “files empty” or the number of losses sustained, the false images imposed by colonial media in their narrative poisonings of the people against themselves have had less impact than the colonial project had sought. The people have remained resolute and together, if not completely, then to a significant enough degree that wide-reaching positive outcomes remain a possibility. All of this militaristic imagery applied to lips, Annharte employs to simultaneously delight and inform the readership.

remember the cowboy Indian movie especially starring in it don't get lines just come out trilling give us lots of tongue

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Annharte talks of all of these media-related challenges in a way that is neither artificially light or overly negative in tone, and that also is imbued with erotic humor, again correlating her work with debwewin. This balanced voice continues:

pow wow lips contest time ceremonial lips action

These few lines might poke fun at an imagined vain pow wow dancer. This dancer might be so immersed in dancing as to poke the lips out unconsciously or for effect, during the dance. Humor in Annharte’s work could easily be seen as a revitalization of humor in ancestral narrative, though this sounds at the outset too grand a claim to make. It might be more reasonable to suggest that laughter, a key facet of Anishnaabeness has survived in Annharte’s person because of the influence of friends and family and that her use of it so extensively in her work may be a renewal of the ancestral life through laughter, but maybe not as deliberate a renewal as the first statement would seem to claim.

In all the poem 'Exercises in Lip Pointing' of the book of the same title, reveals the space existing between the everyday necessity to keep moving forward. This is characterized by a playful humour bordering on celebratory eroticism coupled with an irony. These characteristics overlap well with the humour of the aadizokewin reflected in the Ojibwa Texts. All of Annharte's writing, after so many twists and turns of nuance and subtlety seeks the improved well being of Anishnaabeg and ally alike. In this way it is a medicine – corrective, through constructive criticism, celebratory, through humour, and perspective reorienting, through wit and social consciousness. It is a medicine of

262 complex design and action, and one that maybe owes its efficacy to its intricacy. In any case, the reader although encouraged to find different paths through the poem comes away with the sense of having been challenged to reorient his or her own perspective and invigorated to continue on the business of daily life.

5.6 Annharte Conclusions

When Annharte says “To doctor a story means to doctor one's self,” she looks to a universality flowing through the land. Through a living practice of mamaandaawiziwin, the stories themselves along with the boundaries of mashkikiiwaadizookewin, story- medicine expand. In a way the old narrative practices renewed represent some of the people’s best chosen thought patterns saved and gifted to the new generations.

Authors often express the feeling that once a work is begun, it seems at times to write itself. In western literature this has been explained in terms of the influence of one’s muse or divine inspiration. In fantasy writing it is sometimes explained in terms of discovery, as though the worlds and peoples described had somehow always existed, and it was simply the author’s good fortune to stumble upon them. From another vantage the aadizookaanag and âtayôhkanak, grateful for the stewardship and care the people have gifted to them over the years wish to help the people in return. Along with this comes the intimation that a very close sisterhood exists between creation and recreation. This appears as a circular authoring and re-authoring traded back and forth between perception, which includes identity, and aadizookewin – âtayôhkêwina. In

263 other words stories and literature shape people and people in turn, informed by stories, reshape those stories and themselves in an recurring cycle.

In Annharte’s writing the sharing of thematic currents occurs so easily between writer and reader as to equate Annharte’s narrative practice to maamaandaawiziwin, or a practice of relating to the mystery. When two individuals practice mamaandaawiziwin, they may also begin to lessen their understanding of one another as entirely separate. Instead they may understand something of the greater nature of their kinship. Maybe this is because their own voiced identities for the moment have quieted becoming lost somewhat amidst the turn of contemplation and emotion. In other words, as perception affects identity, distinct relations observing mamaandaawiziwin may come to understand themselves for the while the story or poem yet lingers as being not so distant from one another as may have been assumed.

When reaching out across relations, humanity begins to seem less like a fixed idea and more of just one shade in a gradient of colors, each of those colors representing some aspect of the land - a stone nation, an animal nation, a star nation. So through practicing mamaandaawiziwin, practicing wonderment regarding the nature of the mystery of existence, separate relations may come to better understand their connection to others, in turn through aadizookewin and âtayôhkêwina. Put directly whether new or old, aadizookewin and âtayôhkêwina may at times comprise a kind of mamaandaawiziwin or mamâhtâwisiwin actualizing mashkikiiwaadizookewin and maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina.

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The existence of street and performance poetry represents a reclamation of poetics by everyday people, as do these forms of expression provide a means for those- otherwise-unheard to find voice, to share ideas and experience. In its ideal form, pre- commercialization, street poetry rebalances an unbalanced city power structure by creating social, conceptual, and artistic space in which the voices of the dispossessed might flourish. At the point of origin, street and performance poetry is not limited to critique or bound by expectations of style. So far, these expressive forms have remained more or less experimental, highly individual, and relatively non-hierarchical.

These are qualities also that street and performance poetry share with Anishnaabe mino-bimaadiziwin and ancestral aadizookewin, and so the two, aadizookewin and progressive experimental poetics embolden one another in Annharte's narrative arts.

Annharte's poetry deals often with urban racism, injustice and the strangeness, both horrific and beautiful, of living out a longstanding resistance to colonialism. In this she gives us models through personal example of willfulness, and a dialectical quality that balances certainty with critical debwewin. Her debwewin comes in the form of straightforward, cutting, vigilant attention to accuracy and truth telling. Her poetry does not allow the reader a quick-reference, path-of-least-resistance shortcut to interpretations of events. Instead, Annharte coaxes the reader often through a kind of satirical side-tilt of the head, to see the world with that same debwewin she uses, with that same direct yet many-times-over-reevaluated truthfulness.

The title “Exercises in Lip Pointing” refers, it goes without saying, to the

Anishnaabe practice of indicating direction with a lip point. If lip pointing is direction-

265 giving, this book is a series of exercises in just that. In these pages, the author travels a series of ideological pathways, describing yet another map, reminiscent of the maps laid out in Louise Halfe's The Crooked Good, of the shifting obstacles present in the colonial surround. Imagine the skill one would acquire in having to navigate a continually self- reordering Escherian stair-scape, where each staircase and surface remains ever in chaotic motion. As in the case of Louise Halfe's work, Annharte describes to others how she has navigated aspects of this perilous passage. This ideally empowers the reader with knowledge regarding the ideological and emotional topography of Anishnaabewaki as affected by colonial occupation, so that she or he may better find their own way through.

The title “Exercises in Lip Pointing” works on several different levels of interpretation, as do many of the poems it contains. For this reason these poems are likely to continue to hold the reader’s interest after several readings. Each time through reveals different truths to the reader depending on his or her current state of mind of and the particular layers of meaning that happen to come to light during a given reading. In one moment a poem may evoke a sense of twisted irony. At another it may cultivate a sense of defiant indignation.

Both the Ojibwa Texts and Annharte’s work teach an ability to look for patterns outside the fixity of convention. They do this while at the same time teaching a sometimes playful, sometimes pointed debwewin. In this way Annharte's poetry has in common with ancestral narrative practice the ability to encourage grounded and practical yet simultaneously expansive thinking.

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A close partner to critical awareness, humour in Annharte’s work plays the role of creating good feeling during conversation while it also has the potential to destabilize the conventional direction of conversations. This makes different directions, paths that may have been otherwise obscured, possible. Humour also builds trust with a readership, and once people are laughing they are more likely to become relaxed. With hidden or buried hatreds calmed, and self-censorship allayed somewhat, individuals may become also more likely to think and speak openly and have meaningful exchanges.

By describing in detail the corrupted and ill-kept backstage of the colonial illusion, something Anishnaabeg often have an acute awareness of, Annharte reaches potential and current allies, some of whom may be middle or upper class, and so among those likely to be subject to an extreme sustained influx of misinformation from mainstream media. From her poetry these allies or would-be allies may be starkly reminded of the severity of Indigenous realities and therefore likely reinvigorated to sustain their ally-ship.

Contemporary performance poetry resembles older narrative art in several key ways. For one, it is still accessible to all people, regardless of rank or station. In the cities, anyone can go to a poetry slam, an open stage, or group reading. In that sense the genre still belongs to the people though it differs from one-time populist practices of epic poetry and story-telling. Now regulated by publishing access, these largely find themselves relegated to proven experts of the craft.

In addition, whereas epic poetry and traditional aadizokaan arts belonged to the woods, back roads, and river ways, contemporary performance poetry though available

267 in rural areas through the internet140, radio and libraries, or an occasional visit from a poet, occurs usually in urban settings. One can still on occasion listen to a professional storyteller who may well speak on reservations and reserves, but modern storytellers often confront expectations that their stories become codified - either made generic for young children, or frozen in time as verbatim retellings of supposedly 'pure', unaltered versions of stories.

Reading out loud another person’s work is wholly different than the act of reading one’s own work. A further stage of transformative experience regarding voice occurs when a person speaks a work they have both improvised and memorized. An even greater transformative potential space pertains when a person improvises, albeit with the help of formulae, on the spot. When Louise Halfe or Annharte write poetry, they also at some point may appear at a reading, or on the radio to speak it. This actualizes the poetry and vitalizes it in a way that simple printing and working through a publisher do not.

Printed works have a special life of their own on the other hand, equally independent of oratory. That is, there is a magic to books having to do with the personal, individual way in which they are experienced, and in their fundamental

140 At present Wikipedia and other community information sources available through the web are often sorely lacking in Indigenous content. A drive from within Indigenous Studies departments to remedy this by sponsoring students to create comprehensive Wikipedia and other easily accessible internet material may be a positive direction in the future for departments to take. Nativewiki, a community based attempt to provide good information related to all-things-Indigenous would be among those information sources that might benefit from harnessed university power. JSTOR and related databases also are sources of Indigenous stories and ethnography that the communities have the rightful benefit of. A drive to publicize JSTOR and related database materials would also be beneficial to the integrity of community information regarding ancestral thought. A move toward the repatriation of intellectual property like stories and ethnography, happening now informally, could at some point formally come to parallel the more commonly recognized and supported repatriation of artifacts extant in initiatives like NAGPRA, the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act in the U.S.

268 artifact, the way they feel, look and smell, entirely independent from oratory as well.

On the other hand, spoken presentation of work, either written beforehand, improvised or memorized, provides a kind of satisfaction for the writer that is not possible otherwise, as does it give the audience a unique experience of the work.

Attention to directness and the allowance for the sameness between apparently different things is natural to Anishnaabemowin aadizookewin and is one of its characteristic poetic strengths. Again the expansiveness of possible realities that results from this is so refreshing as to be inspiring and so vital as to encourage innovative thought in the development of contemporary poetics. This is what has happened in the case of Annharte's poetry. She has developed her craft and discipline independently by rekindling the embers of Anishnaabe aadizookewin poetics. Furthermore the process, the relationship to speech that accompanies her poetry resonates strongly with ancestral aadizookewin practices, enough to allow that what she does is part of the same continued practice, much like Louise Halfe's work which she acknowledged as a continuation of older Cree practices.

There is a parallel between Annharte’s work and the social awareness revealed by Anishnaabe aadizookewin, though such was the focus of only the Cree stories herein as we saw in “The Character and Knowledge of the Cree'’ (nâhnamiskwêkâpaw - Louis

Moosomin in Bloomfield (Etd.) 1934, 4-11), 'The Birth of Wîsahkêcâhk' (kâ-kîsikaw pîhtokêw - Coming Day in Bloomfield (Etd.) 1943, 270-277) and 'The Origin of Mankind'

(nâhnamiskwêkâpaw - Louis Moosomin in Bloomfield (Etd.) 1934, 4-11). For understanding of social consciousness in Anishnaabe aadizookewin literal, explicit

269 examples are relatively uncommon. Encoded or intimated examples are many, if stories emphasizing broad relationality might be considered socially conscious.

It would be easy to relate social consciousness to the story Jones gives the unlikely title: “The Woman Who Married a Beaver” (Gaagiigebinesii in William Jones

(Etd.) Ojibwa Texts, Vol. II, 1919, 251)141 or to Angeline William’s The Dog’s Children

(1991). Through these stories the idea of developing social relations or romantic relationships outside one’s usual circles is addressed as are concepts surrounding the nationhood of animals. This later conception enables a further understanding of human beings’ modest position in creation as opposed to Christian views142 that tend to place human beings egoistically above animals. This in turn leads to the teaching of expansive relationality, interconnectedness and the ubiquitous perfection of existence. These teachings empower any individual to the level of any other while subverting power hierarchies as an indirect consequence.

141 In future re-editions of some of the old texts it may be wise to omit episode titles altogether. Appreciating the texts without the influence of misleading episodic titles may be key in orienting the mind of the reader to a more accurate experience of the aadizookewin. Where episode titles align the stories with ‘fairy tales’ or ‘just so’ stories now, they are neither of these, of course being of completely distinct content. To give them different titles could flavor their interpretation in different ways, equally destructive. The safest solution would be to encourage community meetings to address the titles, maybe with the possibility of republishing with only mention of the author and location, provided along with any possible context surrounding the telling. This creates the additional problem of reference which could alternatively be addressed through the use of an index or a table of context of keywords. Enlisting poets to come up with chapter titles represents another possible road. In any case the chapter titles as they now stand for the Ojibwa Texts are misleading and could use some address in future republications.

142 There are exceptions to these hierarchies within Christianity, and these exceptions may becoming more prevalent as churches continue to be reformed from within and/or tailored to meet the designs of their respective Parishes. During times of social shift, churches in order to retain membership will bend somewhat in their tolerances of differing ideologies. Typically, when these times of more open mindedness pass, the churches by in large (again with some exception) seem to revert back to their default conservatism. Of all denominations, the Unitarians, Quakers and African American churches of the Northern United States, alongside liberation theology practitioners of Latin America seem to have the most potential in becoming viable agents of social change. In Anishnaabewaki the possibility of a church being for or against traditionalism is divided, largely based on the degree of control the local community has over the power structure of the church.

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Some of the primary tenets of the aadizookewin, mainly debwewin - relational expansiveness, smooth thinking and the value of self-determination - are common to both the Ojibwa Texts’ aadizookewin and to Annharte’s poetry, which could of course be considered expressions of ancestral aadizookewin, though the connections are less direct than in the case of Louise Halfe and the Plains Cree Texts. Where Louise Halfe directly invoked stories from the Plains Cree Texts such as ‘âtayôhkan cihcipistikwân’,

“Rolling Head”, Annharte’s work mirrors the general concepts of Ojibwa Texts without drawing upon any of the stories directly. Annharte speaking on the “Panel on Aboriginal

Writing in Canada” at the I'POYI Gathering directly indicates that in her opinion

Indigenous writing is ancestrally informed: “…And again recognizing that it has to do with storytelling that comes from these communities. …And it’s our ancestors trying to reach us and tell us what do we gotta do today to survive.” (Annharte 2009, 20:24) She also intimates that she has internalized, in much the same way as Tomson Highway,

Gerald Vizenor, and Richard Van Camp, among others, aspects of the transformational, sometimes elder-brother beings in her outlook. Coyote Girl “submits to temptation for fun.” (Annharte 1994, 115) This practice, though more dangerous, also respects the gift of life by submitting to the full experience of life as opposed to an overly controlled approach to life. It also leads to greater knowledge that can then be shared for the benefit of others as does it serve as encouragement to those living too controlled a life to experiment with the assumed boundaries of their own lives.

Similarly, Annharte’s writing borrows from the old stories not so much in a literal or direct way, but in a way that reflects process, similarly to how Gerald Vizenor

271 developed his approach to writing around older storying methods. Anishnaabe scholar

Kim Blaeser has the following to say in Gerald Vizenor: Writing in the Oral Tradition

(2002) regarding Vizenor’s approach to plot in a way that reflects an aadizookewin- influenced literary awareness:

But while most of the Native American novels in print are still clearly plot- centered, Vizenor's writing is more idea-centered. Many of his works actually work against a formal plotting. In Vizenor we get "wisps of narrative," with the whole stories scattered in pieces between several of his books. (Blaeser 1996, 2002)

This expressionist approach to plot reflects the same ‘elliptical quality’ that William

Jones describes the stories of the Ojibwa Texts having in his introduction to those volumes. It is also the selfsame overlapping and even cyclical episodic nature of plot that Christopher Vecsey describes in ancestral narrative in Imagine Ourselves

Richly…(1988). This poetic quality appears in the shades and shadows of Annharte’s work as well as does the awareness of relationality that comes through mashkikiiwaadizookewin. If poetics are the shape of the ideas that give rise to mashkikiiwaadizookewin then mashkikiiwaadizookewin is the effect, both healing and empowering, that those poetics yield.

Like Jeannette Armstrong’s poetry, Annharte is socially conscious and steadfastly political without necessarily intending politics. In addition, both authors often use a grid work paragraph style that allows the reader several different literal routes through a piece, that is, aside from the many readings that can come from layered meanings. In addition, Jeannette Armstrong and Annharte each value the living will and voice

272 inherent in the land itself, as do they encourage a renewal of ancestral life of a kind that centers land relationality.

Like Gerald Vizenor, Annharte becomes a transformational voice at times, upending commonly accepted ideas with a playful and contradictorily cutting curiosity.

These two authors share the will to look at nearly any topic, though Annharte would seem closer to the urban underground and a critique of forces at work there. On the other hand though both authors overlap by covering a broad range of similar topics,

Vizenor has addressed the masked racisms of institutional environments such as universities to a greater degree. Like all of the authors mentioned, the quality that

Annharte and Gerald Vizenor share above all is the commitment to challenging readers to think independently, critically and in a manner that is celebratory yet necessarily straightforward and uncompromising.

Like Ingrid Washinawatok in Kathleen Tigerman’s Wisconsin Indian Literature

(2000), Annharte faces corrupted colonial powers with surety, levity, kindness and direct, intense critique. The work of both of these strong women recalls that of other women that have gone before and many who live now - those who have a clear image of mino-bimaadiziwin while carrying the knowledge that such is as much a right as it is a realistic possibility. Each author reveals where the veil has torn so to speak – the points where colonially mastered realities can be shown to have attempted to mask the cruelties of empire. As compared to Annharte, Ingrid Washinawatok deals more with rural politics, contemplating the day-to-day reforms necessary to better living in the

Fourth World. Among many other topics, Ingrid provides a treatment of termination

273 policy rare in any literature, while Annharte does the same for unraveling layers of urban colonial fabrication.

Annharte’s medicine finally reminds Anishnaabeg cousin and brother nations, alongside European-descent allies, that the tree of self and community though it may have been bent by empire, never broke or burned away completely - the colonial purveyors could not destroy ancestral thought, and the people did not lose many, possibly any of the ideas most vital to Anishnaabe-ness.

It may not on the surface prove apparent that some of the older ideas exist in a single individual’s life, and Anishnaabeg sometimes discredit themselves claiming a sense of no longer possessing genuine Indian-ness or Anishnaabe-ness. Ironically, this mental stress in a way may indicate evidence of one’s retention of these complex identities. A person at peace with total assimilation is the goal-state of the colonial project, so internal conflict in a way could be seen as suggestive of the failure of assimilation. The continued presence of Anishnaabe identity whether perceived consciously by the individual or not would naturally manifest as conflict and tension if total assimilation failed. Encouraging nuanced understandings of identity allows greater possibility for individuals to see themselves in a positive light thereby opening up greater possibilities for empowerment. If the internal question interrogates

Anishnaabe-ness looking for clear markers of identity, maybe one of those markers has to do with a person having questions surrounding identity. Maybe conflict and internal contradiction caused by the colonial legacy indicate Anishnaabe identity and the presence of an internal struggle – whether characterized as a fight to allow the

274 expression of ones’ true inner nature, or a fight to remain who one truly is against the wiles of colonial influence. As Annharte reiterates throughout ‘Medicine Lines…’ identity is never binary but is instead always complex, and we might do well to encourage one another by celebrating that complexity.

As the innovations of resistance continue to grow, so do methods of oppression.

The longer Anishnaabeg face colonial influence, the more that colonial influence, although concurrent with genuine reform, masks intensifying malevolence. This challenge of discerning the truth and knowing when the outside world intends harm or hurt regardless of appearances is one of Annharte’s narrative medicine traits. This becomes especially critical when harm or hurt, masked or plain, come from internalized colonial poisoning. A critical debwewin at these times becomes an individual’s or a community’s greatest potential ally. The outside world often expresses frustration when communicating with Anishnaabeg because decisions seem sometimes to take a long time.

The idea of Indigenous poetics continues to evolve as different authors, readers and listeners continue to add their own definitions. These poetics have value in the way in which they fuel the participatory authorship of collective conceptual spaces – those that go beyond what is often possible in the physical spaces writers inhabit. The prison, the streets, the university - these are not always places where one may think and live freely without thought of consequence. mashkikiiwaadizookewin has made it possible for the life of the mind to flourish even within these oftentimes problematic conceptual environments and it is a thing that may be felt as well as philosophized about. It is a

275 place that is all at once interesting, enjoyable, expansive and safe, where trust can develop amidst chaos and cruelty and where combined trusts can lead to expanded awareness of relationality. mashkikiiwaadizookewin brought about through an appreciation for mamaandaawiziwin may represent one of the primary ways forward now, an ability to see ourselves all as one soul inseparable and indivisible from the land and living earth herself.

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6 Conclusions

The structure of this project may be understood as follows: to contextualize narrative medicine; to allow definitions for narrative and poetics to emerge from the older texts and newer poetry; and to observe the interplay between emerged definitions. All of this simply works as a demonstration of a possible indigenist approach to texts presented so that others may take from it what they may. The hope is that those interested in nation-specific education and inquiry may benefit from the nêhiyawêwin, Anishnaabemowin and aadizookewin - âtayôhkêwina centered approaches to texts. This work represents a move towards making education and towards educational independence and the strengthening of Cree and Anishnaabe literary nationalism.

âtayôhkêwina-aadizookewin and to a lesser degree âcimowina-dibaajimowin underlie narrative medicine. In Across Borders Across Culture (2010), Cree poet and nêhiyawêwin speaker Duncan Mercredi tells of the importance of aadizookewin -

âtayôhkêwina and âcimowina-dibaajimowin:

When i was a child, the voices of the village would echo from house to house and across the river, the laughter would last well past sundown, and if you listened hard enough you could hear the whispers of the old ones, saying this is the way it should be, but now it seems we need to hear these stories more than ever, before they go the way of the river and the lake, fading. (Mercredi in Depasquale, Eigenbrod, LaRocque (Eds.) 2010, 124)

Ancestral voices, the stories of the Ojibwa Texts and the Plains Cree Texts through playful erotic humour and transformational metaphoric drive, describe an awareness of experience knit from possibility - one made up of vitality, malleability and agency. The

277 themes emerging from these texts suggest something of the character of the individual orator-authors and of the communities who listened to the stories as audience preference would have shaped the content and direction of the narratives over time.

The Cree author Louise Bernice Halfe in The Crooked Good (2007) and Anishnaabe author Marie Annharte Baker in Exercises in Lip Pointing (2003) each consciously renews ancestral narrative, mending the breaks in the continuity of narrative inflicted on their respective nations by residential school and other colonial technologies, and that which continues oftentimes indifferently though nonetheless destructively in pubic education.

In Centering Anishninaabeg Studies (2013) the volume’s three editors in a co-authored introduction speak of the importance of nation-specific perspectives being pursued in the critique of internally created literatures, these being derived in part from ancestral narrative practices and consciousness:

Much scholarship produced by Anishninaabeg... could be argued as different embodiments of the idea that Anishninaabeg Studies resides in and through Anishinaabeg stories - past, present, and future. As before, Anishnaabeg are examining our community's offerings, adding perspectives and ideas, and making new stories in the interests of carrying forward an intellectual and collective future... Anishinaabeg- centered scholarship emerging from an examination of Anishinaabeg stories represents some of the most innovative and exciting work being produced today. (Doerfler, Sinclair and Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark (Eds.) 2013, 10)

This innovation cycle of narrative consciousness has to do with those stories involving the telling of life experience, events or news as well as with sacred stories. Sacred stories âtayôhkêwina - aadizookewin, and the telling of events, âcimowina - dibaajimowin each in their own way intend entertainment and company, laughter and celebration while at the same time empowering the listener and storyteller alike with

278 the ability to think freely, intuitively, adaptively, all in a way that acknowledges expansive kinship. These forms and effects constitute some of those ancestral narrative elements continuously renewed by modern poets. Louise Halfe in her work slowly reveals the texture of ê-kwêskit’s relations complete with their trials, challenges, injuries and joys. She speaks of ê-kwêskit’s sisters Three Person, wâpan, and her brothers

Mechanic and ospwâkan, their experiences of abuse in church and marriage, yet also the good life they had when they were together. Annharte, in her writing, exposes the illusions that cover the ongoing brutality of colonialism while encouraging all to look towards a future where people and the land restore and reinforce a close common kinship. Each of these two poets, in their own way as a storyteller, affects a medicine that counteracts colonialism while healing, empowering, and invigorating the envisioning potential of the reader-ship.

Louise Halfe in The Crooked Good (2007) reveals ê-kwêskit, Turnaround

Woman’s kinship with her family as so foundational that her identity becomes difficult at times to discern from that of her siblings, mother and grandmother. In Annharte’s

Exercises in Lip Pointing (2003) kinship comes from an understanding that all people are equally important and that each individual has strengths that complement those of another - though granted an individual’s strengths may not be readily apparent until a situation arises when they are needed. Annharte and Louise Halfe’s kinship reveal a continual mutual encouragement balanced with an attentive and vigilant critical constructiveness. These qualities are reflected throughout the Plains Cree Texts and

Ojibwa Texts as well as revealed by thematic content surrounding kinship and expansive

279 relationality. Specifically kinship and expansive relationality appear strongly as we saw in: Ojibwa Texts: Episode I & III of ‘Wemiisaakwaa, Clothed in Fur’ (Gaagigebinesi 1919,

206-240), and ‘The Boy that Was Carried Away by a Bear’ (Gaagigebinesi 1919, 271-

278); Plains Cree Texts: 'Man and Bear' (kâ-kîsikaw pîhtokêw - Coming Day 1984, 164-

189), and 'A Bony Spectre Abducts a Woman' (sâkêwêw - He Comes Into View - Adam

Sakewew, 1934, 204-211).

Oftentimes the two faces of ancestral medicine and, likewise, narrative medicine combine as a kind of looking beyond - healing while experiencing changes in understanding. When they do, we find that lines between the metaphor of narrative as medicine and the actuality of narrative as medicine blur. When this takes place narrative is not like medicine, it is medicine. At this juncture expansive perspective and appreciation for broad relationality leads directly to empowerment of the individual both in terms of identity and community ability to reorient perception.

In N. Scott Momaday’s The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969), remembers his grandfather telling him of a moment when he acquired great medicine:

(…) something had always bothered Mammedaty, a small aggravation that was never quite out of his mind, like a name on the tip of the tongue. He had always wondered how it is that the mound of earth which a mole makes around the opening of its burrow is so fine. It is nearly as fine as powder, and it seems almost to have been sifted. One day Mammedaty was sitting quietly when a mole came out of the earth. Its cheeks were puffed out as if it had been a squirrel packing nuts. It looked around for a moment, then blew the fine dark earth out of its mouth. And this it did again and again, until there was a ring of black, powdery earth on the ground. That was a strange and meaningful thing to see. It meant the Mammedaty had got possession of a powerful medicine. (Momaday 1969, 73)

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N. Scott Momaday’s grandfather had seen something that human beings rarely observe, witnessing a kind of visual poetry or land poetic. The experience was important to the man and as a narrative medicine reoriented his own awareness of the land and of his perception of relationality, so as to bring about greater well being in his own person. At that moment the possibilities and the layered meanings resident in the land were shown to be greater than he had previously known. The world again reminded him that it was made from mysterious endless possibility. This wonderment at the depth and interrelatedness of existence is one intended meaning of the words mamâhtâwisiwin and mamaandaawiziwin in Cree and Anishnaabemowin respectively. So, in this passage,

Momaday directly relates relationality awareness similar to that suggested by mamâhtâwisiwin - mamaandaawiziwin with medicine through the poetic telling of an event, much like Annharte relates dibaajimowin with an aadizookewin poetic feel or shaping quality. This illustrates one way in which narrative medicine can come about, only here it is the land itself telling a kind of dibaajimowin-âcimowina delivered with an aadizookewin-âtayôhkêwina poetic shaping: the mole creating a circle of dust and a witness - a human being - who cares about what he is seeing. Momaday’s grandfather is as much apart of the medicine as is the mole and the dust, it is the relationship of ideas and emotion surrounding these events that defines narrative medicine.

Regarding community building, literary nationalism is a natural result of narrative medicine. Leanne Simpson in a 2013 article for Yes magazine elaborates on the importance of the continued renewal of ancestral thought: “Our responsibility is to continue to recover that knowledge, recover those practices, recover the stories and

281 philosophies, and rebuild our nations from the inside out.” (Leanne Simpson interviewed by Naomi Klein, 2013) In this short passage the idea of nationhood and story becomes a direct correlative. If the one is practiced then the other results, maybe because a people rich in stories also has a strong sense of center. If stories in addition are authored and stewarded by the people themselves then a sense of self- determination must follow. All of these qualities mirror aspects of healthy nationalism in the best sense of the idea. When stewarded by a community of people stories empower that community to participate actively in the orientation of their own perspectives. In other words comprehensive narrative medicine enables strong independent consciousness and awareness.

A nation is a strong people first and foremost, and at the center of popular strength resides narrative practice. From there the utility of the word nation comes into question as the character of a people becomes eclipsed by the trappings of a nation- state. Nation building in its finest sense has little to do with institutions and much to do with individual character and extended family, and the development of thought systems that enable and encourage a conscious awareness of expansive relationality actualizing mutual aid.

In short, literary nationalism provided we take care in how we utilize the idea refers to empowering individuals and communities through narrative medicine.

It is less important whether a people retains a memorized, fixed archive of stories than if they maintain a consciousness and practice capable of innovating stories in accord with ancestral perspectives and thoughtways. A community kept tradition of narrative that

282 emphasizes critical lucidity, vibrant erotic humor alongside lithe abstract conceptualization as shown by author-orators like Gaagigebinesiikwe kâ-kîsikaw pîhtokêw , Skydancer Louise Halfe and Annharte influences the development of a communal ‘consciousness’ that is strong and innovative and likely to embrace life. As a nation builds itself according to ideal conceptions of collective individuality, when translated into nationhood, a strong, balanced nation emerges guided by its own powers of narrative medicine. Narrative medicine in sacred stories really is the result of an ongoing interrelationality or conversation between aadizookaanag - âtayôhkanak and

Anishinnaabeg and nêhiyawak. The two, the stories and the human beings, shape each other as do the two look after, renew and guide one another. It begins with this simple spark: the heart of a nation is made up of the spirits of its stories.

A great many Cree and Anishnaabe people have throughout all, maintained and developed a critical consciousness that reflects the teachings having to do with appreciating reality and all of its gifts as opposed to accepting colonially imposed illusions. The Ojibwa Texts, the Plains Cree Texts and the writings of Louise Halfe and

Annharte all have in common an awareness of place and an attention to looking at reality in innovative, yet clear ways. The perspectives coming out of all of these works result from long playful, yet sharp and critical consideration of the kind indicative of individually sovereign self-determining awareness. All of the themes that emerged from these works share that one quality in common: they come from empowered independent autonomous individual awareness.

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Annharte’s and Louise Halfe’s thinking results in community building as a natural result of living an enjoyable life, as does the playful exuberance communicated in the

Ojibwa Texts and the Plains Cree Texts. Narrative practice, whether through older traditions of storytelling or their renewed forms in poetry, represents some of the most powerful tools available in influencing this later effect. One skilled in creatively orienting perspective, in relating to the mystery of existence with a poetic outlook is by nature self-determining, and a self-determining, independent individual is one most equipped to lead a good life. The circular relationship transforming intellectual autonomy to mutual aid and back lies at the heart of Cree and Anishnaabe ancestral good life. Good living has nothing to do with visible indicators or outwardly identifiable characteristics. It is instead a practice or method of freedom that results when a people hold truth, an active attention to reality mediated by critically playful thinking in high esteem.

The definition for poetics that slowly acquired resolution during the unfolding of this work came as something of a surprise. Poetics is the shape ideas take, the way in which an individual narrative artist whether storyteller of writer practices narrative medicine. For those of the Bois Forte and James Bay watersheds, the poetics of the

Ojibwa Texts assert a landscape rich with life, action, memory, layered depth and relationality, all infused with a maamaandaawiziwin that flows like water throughout.

For the Sweet Grass orators of the Plains Cree Texts, the same holds true. The land is a place ever in motion, ever creative and imbued with endless possibility, like tributaries to a river - many smaller futures coming together into one shared present. Basil

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Johnston describes this sense of land-associated expansive relationality in Honouring

Earth Mother (2003):

The rock carved into mountains, hills, valleys, scarps and meadows; the water falling as rain from above, flowing as rivers, cascading over falls, forming pools and lakes, radiate beauty. The air moving or rushing over trees or lakes resonates music. And the fire as sun or lightning lends light and warmth. These elements, fused as one to form the earth, bring good and beauty into being, growth and life. The land is everything. (Johnston 2003, xvi)

Each narrative medicine practice of these ancestral authors’ collectives if you will, brings strength, will and agile intellectualism to the people - the poetics of these orators reveals the wonderment resident in experience, sublimating the common to the extraordinary, defying the separation of the sacred from the profane. When these narrative medicines come to bear on experience, little room remains for meaningless existence everything instead appears instead as it is – alive, mysterious and wondrous, no matter how ordinary-seeming at the outset.

And so narrative medicine and poetics in the case of the Sweet Grass orator- authors of Plains Cree Texts and the Chi-gaming, Lake Superior watershed orator- authors of Ojibwa Texts become partnered. If narrative medicine leads to greater wellbeing for the people, then poetics might represent the way in which that medicine unfolds, or the shape it takes. Metaphorically, if narrative medicine is the fire’s warmth and light, then poetics is the shape, luminosity and dance of the individual flames. One may tell a story that heals and empowers, that is narrative medicine; how the story is told, and the move towards envisioning that present in narrative medicine, that is poetics.

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The narrators from Bois Forte and Lake Superior watershed Gaagigebinesikwe -

Forever Bird Woman - Mrs. Marie Syrette, Gaagigebinesi - Forever Bird - John Binesi,

Midaasookanzh - Ten Claws, Maajiigaaboo - He Begins to Rise To His Feet, and

Waasaagooneshkang - He Leaves an Imprint of His Foot Shining in The Snow spoke of kinship and relations, of layered realities and playful eroticism alongside stories of lifelong great friendship and the natural reciprocity that comes out of mutual aid. The

Sweet Grass narrators, nâhnamiskwêkâpaw – (He Is) Standing While Bowing His Head -

Louis Moosimin, sâkêwêw – (He Is) Coming Into View - Adam Sakewew; Alt. (He) Comes

Into View, sîsîkwâyôw – It Is Hailing, kâ-kîsikaw pîhtokêw – Coming Day; nakwêsis -

Mrs. Coming Day, mimikwâs – Butterfly - Simon Mimikwas, and kâ-wîhkaskosahk – ‘(She

Who Is) Burning It So As To Smudge With Sweetgrass’ - Maggie Achenam spoke of kinship and relations, mirrored realities, and playful eroticism while demonstrating a lithe and agile social consciousness. The two sets of emergent themes coming out of different stories appeared comparable. This observation reaffirms what is already well known across urban, reservation and reserve communities - that Cree and Anishnaabe people are akin to brother or sister nations both in terms of common ancestry and preferred modes of thought. This work celebrates that kinship of consciousness in the hopes that future thought-way related kinship between the two peoples will continue to be strong. This work acknowledges the beauty and strength of the similar ideas carried, nurtured, invigorated and protected by these two Nations in the hopes that they may continue to experience renewal throughout beginning after beginning.

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The narrative medicine of the Cree and Anishnaabe nations has a strong center, arguably one impervious to displacement over the long term. Central to the idea of nation in both of these contexts is relation. This extends to all things and so one’s surroundings all share some aspect of family. Existence in short is recognized as family.

The result of this to a person’s consciousness is that nowhere, no matter how hostile a landscape may seem, is one alone as the myriad aspects and elemental qualities of the land are always present. In the film documentary Canadian Natives, The Unwritten

History (1990) the well known Anishnaabe elder Art Solomon, who works in the prisons, explained that the walls, the powders and dust that make up cement brick had been mined from the earth and so that even there in the prison the inmates were surrounded by mother earth, surrounded by sacrality always.

Similarly, at the centre of Anishnaabe and Cree narrative medicine, among many other ideas - most of which have not been talked about here - the central narrative premise holds that humankind is one and part of existence. In this way Anishnaabe and

Cree thought inherently defies colonially ignorant arrogance while expressing indifference to the siren’s call suggesting that humankind should take its rightful place as master-of-all-things. In order to be above one’s relations it becomes necessary to perceive oneself as apart from one’s relations. This sacrifice has long been contemplated in the narrative arts of Cree and Anishnaabe people as is it considered in the works of Louise Halfe and Annharte. The result would be a kind of half-death, a removal of one’s image of self from the image of one’s relations.

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Illnesses of separation are all too apparent to Louise Halfe, they are all too apparent to Annharte, and they were all too apparent to the Cree Sweet Grass author- orators and to the Anishnaabe author-orators in the Lake Superior and near-to the-west watersheds. Louise Halfe fights the illness of separation by working through the personage of ê-kwêskît and âtayôhkêwina, situating herself atemporally amidst the close relations of family and the realtionality and familiality of the land, of the universe.

Her “blue marrow”, the ink from her pen becomes a medicine in fighting these illnesses, while through ê-kwêskît she recognizes the empowerment that comes from life experiences as one becomes both blessed from scarring and bent from struggle, a

“crooked good”. Annharte fights the separation through aadizookewin and dibaajimowin by reinforcing relationality and family while exposing those colonially imposed lies that seek to force a division between self and self, self and community and self and the land. Speaking with the intrinsic power of the land and womanhood in

Being on The Moon, she braids humor, erotica and lip-pointing critical awareness together in her more recent work. These elements together craft a medicine capable of rebinding and renewing ancestral thought to the degree that the reader feels that ancestral thought is and always has been a living and relevant-to-now, even innovation.

What Indigena Awry (2012) tells is beyond the view of this project, but it would seem that the currents of thought Annharte has traveled will continue with both layered intensity and subtle intricacy as they have since Coyote Columbus Café (1990) and so many of her lesser-celebrated but equally vital publications in magazines, newspapers and journals – such that have barely been touched on here.

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That is one additional foremost role of narrative medicine: to reconnect one’s current sense of reality and conscious awareness to that perspective which one perceives to belong to his or her own Cree or Anishnaabe person by rights. Narrative medicine also serves to realize the experience of empowerment that comes with this restored perspective. Annharte and Louise Halfe both assert, albeit in differing ways, that a person whose consciousness has been unbalanced by residential school, formal education, prison life, factory work, corporate institutionalism, agricultural labor, military service or otherwise, may return from these experiences to Cree or Anishnaabe thought among other paths, through the stories, current poetics and narrative practices and through the language. These then are narrative medicines of a very real and tangible kind. Because Cree and Anishnaabe peoples tend to maintain a high respect for reality - enduring resistance to false realities having been often the requirement of daily survival - orators and writers who understand their audiences, who have been close witnesses to and who have experienced many of the basest cruelties of western cruelty like Annharte and Louise Halfe, become those imparted with the responsibility of narrative medicine.

Narrative medicine is not a concept that is explicitly stated in the work of

Annharte, Louise Halfe, in The Ojibwa Texts or in the Plains Cree Texts save for in an elliptical fashion as was revealed by Annharte in “Medicine Lines…” Instead it is a concept, a model derived herein to explain what is happening in all of these works, that consistent, collective practice and effect that all of the orators and authors share. The idea however, formulated within the conscripted frameworks of Anishnaabemowin and

289 nêhiyawêwin intends a kind of literary criticism that would satisfy the needs of community-based education. It is a move towards decolonizing the theoretical modality of literary criticism in a way that would attract Anishnaabe and Cree scholars and educators interested in the connection between older stories and newer poetry.

The focus on narrative medicine comes in part from an impetus to Indigenize the theoretical aspects of literary criticism in such a way as to create a document or at least highlight example of approaches to texts that may be useful in informing educators and students’ own indigenization of scholarship. That is with such a need for education that is welcoming, useful and specific to Cree and Anishnaabe nations, approaches to texts that accomplish this creation of welcoming space within the strictures of formal education comprise one small part of a far greater puzzle of indigenizing not only the academy but public education on the whole.

Cree and Anishnaabe active minds interested in ancestral thought have always had to fight against a current of sometimes alien and antithetical teaching and learning conventions. As a result they have always had to find their own paths in this regard, often without any emotional or intellectual support from institutional educational models that have little ability to either recognize students’ and teachers’ strengths, or welcome their eccentricities. This project hopes to illuminate some pathways surrounding approaches to texts and knowledges that welcome and provide support for those interested the renewal of Cree and Anishnaabe of ancestral thought. The ideal end-state is to establish a set of conceptual patterns that induce in students and teachers alike a sense of strength, independence and meaningfulness such that their

290 individual curiosities and affinities for certain kinds of knowledge and innovation can exist without care or worry of censure. As it stands now, within a greater superstructure of institutional education, there is still a long, long way to go to reach this goal. Where Leonard Bloomfield and William Jones both participated in establishing

Cree and Anishnaabe storying as literature proper, this project hopes in its own modest way to make criticism surrounding these literatures more Cree and Anishnaabe.

nêhiyawêwin and Anishnaabemowin have appeared throughout this work and are some of the primary grounding forces thereof, as are they the source of inspiration for many of the concepts that appear such as narrative medicine encountered here as mashkikiiwaadizookewin and maskihkîyâtayôhkêwina, and in a lesser fashion in

Annharte’s work as mashkikiidibaajimowin. In this case we saw Annharte craft her own medicine-power infused storying method as a way of telling events or dibaajimowin, with a poetic shaping more resonant with the texture and character of sacred stories or aadizookewin. The result is a kind of mashkikiidibaajimowin, or narrative medicine related to the telling of events. There may be a better way to state this as some combination of dibaajimowin, aadizookewin and mashkiki: mashkikiidibaajimowin- aadizookewin might make for the most accurate description of Annharte’s work as understood from a sensibility that recognizes Anishnaabemowin with high esteem. Her work and Louise Halfe’s work both cross imagined boundaries that may exist between the two genres of ancestral literature and as with so many things in nature, we may do well to understand the genres as different shades or colors on the same continuum, one fading into another with ease and grace. So much recent poetry occurs in these

291 conceptual spaces that it causes one to wonder whether such might not stem from the tension created between the colonizer’s view of a dead world where the sacred only enters in at rare moments, and Anishnaabeg and Cree conceptions of a living world where the separation of an abstracted sacred and profane is less if it is present at all.

In terms of long patterns of historicity and the slow turnover of years, nêhiyawêwin and Anishnaabemowin carry a word-bound a series of after-images, ancestral reminders to Anishnaabe people or to Cree people, of how one might perceive or think of reality. To live from the language is to live in a way that orients ones’ perspective to the perspective of previous generations, merging current thought with past, collapsing time into a singularity and kinship into a common moment.

The language itself all of these smaller meanings combined, constitutes a collection of ancestors’ memories and voices which may be consulted when one is relating to experience. Individual path and unique perception comes from this guidance but is not determined by it. A storyteller or poet’s unique interpretation builds on the poetics already woven into the language creating an intertwined individual and ancestral poetic consciousness. A poetic perception is one that, like a garden, has many thoughts growing in it that can sustain the life of the mind and therefore lead to a kind of self-reliant intellect, an awareness that a person is happy to have. Along with other ancestral life-ways, the language through its poetics can act as a kind of medicine, a cultivator of a balanced, resilient and resourceful mentality, one that is capable of seeing not just beauty and depth in the land, but a beauty and depth of a certain unique kind, specific to nêhiyawêwin or Anishnaabemowin as it were.

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It becomes clear even after looking at only a few words, that some of the beauty of nêhiyawêwin and Anishnaabemowin may be understood by translating and comparing different translations. The chapter on the Plains Cree Texts compared multiple translation possibilities with some extensiveness. Translation in addition reveals as much about the mind of the translator as it does about the meanings resident in the language, ancestral thought or the character of a speaker-ship. For that reason translation comparison becomes as much of a character study of those involved as does it reveal the beauty of a particular language. In this work we saw that Leonard

Bloomfield thought well of the people at Sweet Grass by the way he translated much of the Plains Cree Texts. His translations bordered on the grandiose as he attempted to communicate the strength of character he observed in the Sweet Grass orators into

English. The result at the time very likely was positive, his translation influencing those in the academic and linguistic worlds to look at Cree narrative as literature proper. In this work we saw that William Jones appreciated the original form and flow of the language to such an extent as to take great pains to ensure the accuracy of his translations. His approach to accurate, technically literal translation and idea-order contrasted with that of Bloomfield stylistically, though both translators dedicated a great deal of effort to their craft.

From witnessing the patterning of themes, it becomes clear that the flame of the old stories though transformed by necessity, hidden at times even from those that carry it, never went out. This look at narrative medicine has been an affirmation of the strength, resilience, resourcefulness and vitality of the Cree and Anishnaabe people.

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This work is a respect song, a series of exercises in recognizing, acknowledging and highlighting those instances and methods of resistance and resilience utilized by Cree and Anishnaabe orator-authors both old and new. It is a recognition of these individuals’ efforts to maintain their Nations’ narrative practices, such that all may continue toward better life.

In all this has been a conversation mediated by nêhiyawêwin and

Anishnaabemowin alongside the Sweet Grass and Bois Forte Stories and the writings of

Annharte and Louise Halfe surrounding narrative medicine. Both envisioning and healing, narrative medicine results when perception brought about through stories or poetry empowers and invigorates a person’s life. This occurs in Cree and Anishnaabe contexts through humour and expansive relational thinking both in the old stories and in the new writing. The continuity of narrative was not broken by colonialism. It endured.

The people were injured profoundly, but they lasted the storm.

Even now the Cree and Anishnaabe Nations gather strength, each individual practicing mamâhtâwisiwin and mamaandaawiziwin in their her or his unique way according to respective character and strength. The will to read the land remains as does the will to understand how one thing might be related to another, no matter how seemingly distant those two things might appear. These perspectives carried in the narrative practices of Cree and Anishnaabe author-orators continue in vitality. The ancestors voices and their will has become again somewhat selfsame as the voices and will of the people now. Great hope, laughter and wonder made the old stories, and

294 these stories in turn made the people who they were. Great hope, laughter and wonder makes the new stories and these in turn make the people who they are.

kitoni kaki-miyo-âyâyek kahkiyaw niwâhkomâkaninân kiyawâw I hope all of you, our relations, are well. (nêhiyawêwin)

apegish mino-ayaayeg gakina nindinawemaaganiminaan giinawaa. I hope all of you, our relations, are well. (Anishnaabemowin)

pegish mnyaayeg kina ndinawemaaganiminaan giinwa. I hope all of you, our relations, are well. (Nishnaabemwin)

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We may do well to honor the seven original authors of these two sets of texts by ensuring that future citations of individual stories refer to them directly. They are: nâhnamiskwêkâpaw - He Is Standing Bowing His Head - Louis Moosimin, sâkêwêw - He Is Coming Into View - Adam Sakewew; Alt. (He) Comes Into View, sîsîkwâyôw - It Is Hailing, kâ-kîsikaw pîhtokêw - Coming Day; Alt. He Who Is Day Entering, nakwêsis - Mrs. Coming Day, mimikwâs – Butterfly - Simon Mimikwas, and kâ-wîhkaskosahk - She Who Is Burning It So As To Smudge - Maggie Achenam.

———. Menomini Lexicon. Milwaukee : Milwaukee Public Museum Press, 1975.

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We may do well to honor the five original authors of these texts by ensuring that future citations of individual stories refer to them directly. They are: Gaagigebinesikwe - Forever Bird Woman - Mrs. Marie Syrette, Gaagigebinesi - Forever Bird - John Binesi,

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