D, When I Was Younger for Two Months I Would Just Go Crazy – I`D Have to Purchase a Box of Shotgun Shells Almost Every Day
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
I`m just getting back into water fowling again, like I said, when I was younger for two months I would just go crazy – I`d have to purchase a box of shotgun shells almost every day. Then there was the bird flu – so I kind of shut it off then, because I used to bring a lot of my ducks home and take them to the Elders, and I didn`t want the Elders getting sick. But just this past couple of years I`m getting back into it (Grant Lonechild, 2013). Eldon Maxie also did his waterfowl hunting in the fall and would hunt sometimes 30 in a year. He would usually hunt on the north side: There’s a road … we used to call it shotgun hill because all of the ducks used to go straight up the north side of the lake from the park. There wasn’t that much goose growing up here, you’d be lucky to see one or two of them, now they’re sitting along the beach (Eldon Maxie, 2013). Chief Standingready outlined some of the birds they harvest: We use to hunt ducks like mallards, teal and those kinds of things. Once in a while geese. The other things that we hunt are grouse, prairie chickens if we’re lucky; kind of small birds. We used to hunt a lot of rabbits, but they come in a cycle, and some years there’s lots, and some years there’s not. I know the bird population is not what it used to be so, we used to do a lot of duck hunting and bring down a lot of birds. Now that there seems to be not as many as they use to be, we don’t really bother them anymore. But if we do, we usually take the male, the Mallards for example. Selective hunting. That’s a practice that I’ve been taught from my dad and my uncles. You don’t take everything that you see, you just select what you need (Chief Standingready, 2013). Aaron McArthur begins his waterfowl harvesting in October “that’s when the snowgeese will start coming around”. He will harvest approximately 20 ducks and 10 geese a week until they are all gone “usually about a month. They’ll be all gone by November, December for sure” (Aaron McArthur, 2013). He hunts ducks and geese all over, but mainly at Chain Lake, Rango- Jango, and Kakakaway Slough. He also harvests turkeys and wild pigs: These are pigs that have escaped from some farm from around here and they re-habitate around here. Wild pigs are along the edge of the Reserve on the east side, because it borders the wild life refuge … that’s where the wild pigs are hiding right now. They’re hard to find. There was a big kill-off in the park. These guys were just going out in groups and finding them in the park area … farmers and stuff. They just had a big slaughter of pigs. I don’t know what they did with them. For them, they’re just a nuisance … for the farmers and them. They’re destroying their crops. For us, it’s a delicacy to find one of those. It’s food. Turkeys, you’ll find them up around here in the northeast corner … you’ll see them in spring. Late fall you’ll see the odd one, but spring is a better time to catch them (Aaron McArthur, 2013). 106 Traditional Bird Harvesting Methods and Equipment Traditionally, wild fowl were killed in large numbers during the mating season when they could not quickly fly from the water. Men armed with digging-sticks20 waded into ponds and lakes to strike them down. Women, also armed with digging-sticks, were stationed on the shores to get any of the birds that headed for land (Mandelbaum, 1979, pg.69). Plains Cree Digger. Photo courtesy of the Museum of Civilization. Image V-A-844. During the early fur trade the introduction of firearms) both altered and eased all subsistence hunting for the Plains people, and allowed them to rely more on waterfowl as a seasonal staple food. (C.A.A.E., 1997). Catching wild chickens was an activity usually performed by the women, and usually done with a snare made of arched willow sticks planted in the ground. A noose of horsehair was suspended within the arch. As the chicken passed through, it was caught (Mandelbaum, 1979). Elder Nora Kakakaway told us there were lots of geese, partridges, ducks, mud hens, prairie chickens: Geese, mud hens, there’s certain times that they gather eggs, there’s eggs that we gather. Prairie chickens too … Prairie chickens dance, and what we used to do is just get branches, put little snares, little wee snares underneath them, and the chickens would dance right into them. 20 In archaeology and anthropology, a digging stick is used by subsistence-cultures to dig out underground food such as roots, to hunt, and for other domestic tasks. They normally consist of little more than a sturdy stick which has been shaped or sharpened and perhaps hardened by being placed temporarily in a fire. It's a simple device, but is also tough and hardy in order not to break (Wikipedia definitions, 2010). 107 Children often snared small birds and animals and made their own snares: I used to snare rabbits, and to make that snare round, I would use a chair leg. So it must have had chairs already. It was like, my snares went off a path, and everybody used that path, but they kind of knew that that’s where I set my snares, so they would even kind of tell me ‘Hey you better check your snare over there’, whether there was one in there or the snare was cut away (WBFNS member Bruce Standingready, 2012). That’s what my grandfather used to give us, when we were little kids … that round snare wire. We used to set our own snares; we had our own bush road and set our snares. It was just a life (WBFNS Elder Yvonne Lonechild, 2012). Bird Traditional Uses Traditionally, after eggs were collected, they were placed in a shallow pit, covered with coals and allowed to bake. The meat was cooked and eaten as a main course, and often used in many soups and stews. Mattresses were usually constructed with bundles of dried grass or rushes with a buffalo robe thrown over it. But pillows were rectangular sacks of rawhide filled with duck feathers (Mandlebaum, 1979). In Plains culture, the tail feathers of the golden eagle were used to make headdresses, also known as warbonnets. This impressive head gear was only worn by the Chief. Each feather had to be earned through an act of bravery, and occasionally, individual feathers were painted with red dye to commemorate a particular deed. Birds have always been an intricate part of White Bear’s culture, and with the introduction of various weapons, birds were harvested more frequently and in larger amounts. As with the other traditional harvests, however, the birds too have gone. Eagle feathers adorned most Plains objects in ritualistic use – this lent them additional potency. Eagle wings were carried as badges of prestige by important men in ceremonies. They were used as fans in hot weather and also utilized as fire fans. A man who needed eagle feathers for any purpose would make a pipe offering to Eagle spirit power. He would ask Eagle to allow itself to be taken. If he did manage to secure an eagle, a feast would be given in which pipe offerings were made and berries consecrated and eaten. The feathers were plucked out and the eagle carcass was abandoned in a secluded place. When feathers were to be used on a war bonnet or on other martial regalia, the eagle was eaten. (Mandelbaum, 1979). 108 Fish “They did a lot of netting in the winter time … they used to bring my mother tons of them and they would just sort of throw them on the ground. Then they make a wood pile to smoke them, smoke the fish. It was always burning” (WBFNs Elder Almer Standingready, 2012). As mentioned in the previous chapter, the Plains diet originally consisted mainly of bison meat. The Plains Cree and Plains Ojibwe added fish to the diet, but fish was unimportant elsewhere on the Plains. It was not until the arrival of the Europeans and the depletion of the bison, that they began to depend more on other foods, including fish, to supplement their diet (Mandelbaum, 1979). Although the White Bear caught a variety of fish types, their harvests mainly consisted of burbot, goldeye, grayling, pike, suckers, trout, walleye, whitefish, and jackfish. Figure 23 provides the names of some of these fish species, along with their Plains Ojibwe translation. Dozens of White Bear people continue to harvest fish on the Reserve and within White Bear’s traditional territory today. Figure 23: Fish Harvests FISH OJIBWE TRANSLATION Jackfish Ginoozhe+g Perch Asaawe+g Pike Bazhiba`igan+an Pickerel Gidagaa-ganozhii+g Sucker Giigaameg+wag Walleye Pike Ogaa+wag 109 Fish Harvesting Locations A few of the Elders speak of the peoples’ favourite fishing areas: Alameda Fort Qu’Appelle Pickerel Point Alameda Dam Fort Qu’Appelle system Pipestone Creek Basin Creek Good Birch Point Prince Albert Big Marsh Harmon Trail Rafferty Blue Heron Trail Heart Hill Redwood Boundary Hewitt Lake Round Lake Boundary Dam Kakakaway Slough Shoal Lake River System Broadview Kenosee Lake Skeleton Lake Codette Lake of the Prairies Souris River Cannington Lake Last Mound Lake Souris Valley Car-lar Lake Little Kenosee Lake South Saskatchewan River Carlyle Long Lake Southern Manor Chain Lake Leross Squaw Point Christopher Trail Moose Creek Stonebar Courval Moose Mountain Creek Stoney Lake area Cory’s Bay Moose Mountain Park Swift Creek Crooked Lake Moosimin Tobin Lake Cumberland Moosimin Creek White Bear Lake Dauphen Narrows Whitefoot Dumas Nipawin Yusakami EB Campbell Dam North Saskatchewan River Estevan Lake Oxbow Elder George Sparvier explained how Swift Creek feeds into Carlyle, and Moose Mountain Creek feeds into the Souris River, which flows into North Dakota.