As Seen In

hsmichigan.org $6.95 July/August 2018

Michigan’s © 2018 Mushroom Madness

Historicalof Society The Birch-Bark Booklets of by Blaire Topash-Caldwell

© 2018

CHIGA Historical SocietyMI N of Michigan

50 Michigan History • Jul/Aug 2018 he state of Michigan unlike the French or the British, were gets its name from the not as interested in trade with the Great Indigenous peoples of the Lakes Native communities as they were Great Lakes. Mzhigénak, with their land and resources. in , or Extreme dispossession contextualized Tmzhigénêng, in —both of the Native experience during the late the Algonquian language—mean 1800s. Traditional Potawatomi place- “the place that has been clear-cut.” names were overwritten by foreign That jarring place-name refers to English-language ones. A denial Michigan’s changing landscape in of Native-American participation the early years of the United States, in important historical processes, as large amounts of clearcutting their removal west, environmental for farming and development clearcutting, archeological destruction, were underway. Many Indigenous and Native-American grave-robbing peoples—Miami, Potawatomi, , also occurred. Odawa, and others—stood witness Those issues all influenced the to the unprecedented ecological, provocative texts Simon Pokagon political, and social changes published in birch-bark booklets at occurring around them. the end of the nineteenth century. For Native-American communities Pokagon was the son of Potawatomi in the Great Lakes region, or Chief Leopold Pokagon and Elizabeth Neshnabék, the nineteenth century (Ketesse) Topinabee. Simon Pokagon is was defined by the end of European often referred to as “the Last Hereditary “It matters not how alliances and the beginning of Chief of the Potawatomi.” However, American expansion into their traditionally, Potawatomi communities foolish our legends territories. The Potawatomi in have complex, stable, and refined may appear to particular established successful trade leadership roles—and hereditary chiefs relationships with the French during are not one of them. Nonetheless, those races who call the seventeenth and eighteenth Pokagon was an important intellectual, centuries and later with the British activist, and writer. themselves civilized, in the early nineteenth century. But, Pokagon was born sometime in 1830 after the War of 1812, the Americans, near Bertrand and died on January still they were as © 2018 sacred to us as holy writ to them.”

— Simon Pokagon, Pottawattamie Book of Genesis

Pictured throughout this article Historicalof Michigan Societyare images of Simon Pokagon and excerpts from three of his works, Algonquin Legends of Paw Paw Lake, Algonquin Legends of South Haven, and The Pottawattamie Book of Genesis: Legends of the Creation of Man. (All images courtesy of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, Department of Language and Culture.)

Historical Society of Michigan 51 28, 1899, in Hartford, Michigan. He married Lonidaw Angeline, for whom he dedicated his most famous work, Ogimawkwe Mitigwaki, or Queen of the Woods. The descendants of his father’s village are presently called the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians—a federally recognized tribe in Southwestern Michigan and northern Indiana. The tribe avoided removal to Kansas and Oklahoma because of Chief Leopold’s role in the 1833 . Pokagon’s writing resisted anti- Native Victorian zeitgeist, advocated for the rights of the environment, and reclaimed Indigenous space in Michigan in ways that still permeate throughout history to affect readers today. Because he was a prolific writer and Native-American activist, Pokagon spoke at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition as an invited lecturer. Similar to his writings, he spoke about loss of land, racial and religious injustice, and treaty rights, and he fought for Native-American religious thought and logic systems to be treated as equally valid to those of the Western world. The reason Pokagon chose to print © 2018 his stories and oral histories on birch paper was not just a creative or aesthetic rationale, but a political one. His papers pay homage to traditional uses of birch paper for the Potawatomi, as noted below.

“My object in publishing the Red Mans Rebuke on the bark of the white birch tree, is out of loyalty to my own people…. Out of this wonderful tree were made hats, caps and dishes for domestic use, while our maidens tied with it the knot that sealed Historicaltheir marriage vow;Society wigwams were made of it, as well as large canoes that outrode the violent storms on lake and sea; it was of alsoMichigan used for light and fuel at our war councils and spirit dances. Originally the shores of our northern lakes and streams were fringed with it and evergreen, and white charmingly contrasted with the green mirrored from the water was indeed beautiful, but like the red man this tree is vanishing from our forests.” – Simon Pokagon, The Red Man’s Rebuke

52 Michigan History • Jul/Aug 2018 Right: The interior of the Department of Language and Culture’s archives.

While not explicitly mentioned tell the stories of the Pokagon view while dismissing others. Tribal- in his texts, Pokagon’s use of birch Band of Potawatomi Indians and based archives and museums use paper to print his works also reacquaint tribe members with their contemporary archival best practices hints to birch-bark scrolls used by ancestors, traditional knowledge, to preserve important items and Neshnabék across the Great Lakes. and homeland. information while increasing access Those scrolls were and continue to — • — • — • — • — to the communities who produce be used to transcribe oral histories, them. Instead of alienating tribes stories, ceremonial knowledge, © 2018Simon Pokagon’s original from their cultural patrimony, tribal and other important information publications on birch paper archives inspirit and encourage through pictographs. made their way back home the use of archival material by Pokagon’s texts tell stories that recently—to the Pokagon Band of tribal citizens in order to facilitate add a richness to the understanding Potawatomi Indians Department research, reignite ceremonial uses of where the tribe came from as of Language and Culture’s newly of these items, assist in language Neshnabék. He reminds readers of established archives. revitalization, and nourish healing traditional place-names and events The Pokagon Band archives from historical trauma. that occurred thereHistorical in his writings. function a bit differently than Society The establishment of the Pokagon In that sense, Pokagon reclaims traditional museums. Museum Indigenous places in Michigan of MichiganBand archives has allowed the tribe collections have been repositories that have erased the Native of specific types of knowledge to seek acquisitions for the benefit presence from areas such as South almost since their inception. In of tribal citizens through loans, Haven (Nikonėng, or “Beautiful other words, museums have mostly donations, and purchases. That has Sunset”) and Niles (N’dowawjoyêk functioned to appropriate objects also allowed them to collaborate [Dowagiac], or “Place of from communities in order to tell a with local museums and historical Harvesting”). His birch-bark books story and promote certain points of societies in order to more accurately

Historical Society of Michigan 53 portray Native-American history and The Pottawatamie Book of Genesis: and boarding schools sought to culture in their museums. Legend of the Creation of Man (1901, ensure that. Simon Pokagon’s books, The birch-bark books accessioned posthumous), all published by C.H. however, have allowed the Pokagon in the Pokagon Band archives Engle in Hartford, Michigan. Band of Potawatomi Indians to made their way back to their home Making these reverent objects of reclaim their history, language, and community in a surprising way. In cultural and historical patrimony environment in new and constantly 2016, an elderly man named Doug available to the community has evolving ways.A Fisher contacted the Pokagon Band been a rewarding process. Although looking to sell some items he had in the tribe never left Michigan, Blaire Topash-Caldwell is the his possession. He stated that he was colonialism continuously seeks archivist for the Pokagon Band of suffering from dementia and wanted to dispossess Indigenous sense Potawatomi Indians Department of to forward his items to better care© of2018 place from the environment, Language and Culture. before he forgot what they were. separate Indigenous minds The tribe purchased them from from traditional knowledge, and him and has been glad to have them dismantle traditional kinship home. From that purchase, the tribe structures. Indian Removal, the acquired Simon Pokagon’s The Red criminalization of Native religions, Man’s Rebuke (1893), Algonquin Legends of Paw Paw Lake (1900, posthumous), Algonquin Legends of More scenes of the Pokagon South Haven (1900, posthumous), and Band of Potawatomi Indians Department of Language and Historicalof Michigan SocietyCulture’s archives.

54 Michigan History • Jul/Aug 2018