Journal Entries
STORY FOR those that asked one of me.
Posted May 6, 2009
This story is told best as I can recall it. It was said first by my Grandmother when I was small and I do not know where she received it from. I have worked to make it in good English and hope it is enjoyed and that it is remembered and told as stories are meant to be shared and not held as the property of just one but belong to all. This story I told also to my children and I hope they will say it to theirs.
JR
Otter Woman had a great heart it was filled with all manner of good things and no evil was found in it. For this reason she was much loved by many people and hated by some. All people said she made a warm lodge and she had powerful magic for good. If a person was hungry she would not let them pass but fed them. If a person was cold she would not let them pass without sitting by the fire covered with an elk robe to warm their bones. If a person was weary they slept upon soft furs and fresh cedar boughs. Otter Woman made medicines and was a healer to her people and false things were not found in her.
One day Otter Woman was in the forest to gather herbs for healing and berries and nuts for pemmican for the comming Winter. As she walked in her path she heard a quiet voice. "Otter Woman, come heal me, a man has struck me with his club and I am near death." Otter Woman sought out the voice but found nothing. Otter Woman listened but heard nothing. Then the voice mixed with the shivvering of leaves in the breeze. "Otter woman, come down from the high land to where the river is shallow and men cross upon the stones, there I will be found, broken and perhaps dead." Otter Woman went to the place where the river was shallow and men crossed upon the stones and upon a great blue stone she saw Gi'inebeg the serpent.
"What have I to do with you?", she said to him. "You are with a bad heart and it is right that you go to your fathers broken and torn." "Oh no!" says Gi'inebeg, "I have done harm to no man and I eat only frogs and mice and such as I need to live, I am not like those of my fathers lodge, beside this you yourself do the same for you also must eat and so cannot judge me in the council lodge of your heart." "I have called for you, Otter Woman, because you are known to all the children of the Great Spirit and I knew that only Otter Woman would have compassion upon a humble creature such as me, knowing that I too am a son of The Creator. The wisdom to make healing for wounds that are unto death is only in the hands of Otter Woman, All creatures know this of you."
Otter Woman was honored by the talk of Gi'inebeg as he had hoped. She took the basket from her hip and lay a soft skin over it. "How am I to know you will not harm me?" She asked. "To kill you would be to kill myself would it not?" Otter Woman saw the wisdom in this and gentley lifted the serpent to the doe skin within the basket of herbs and berries that now were the resting bed of Gi'inebeg.
When Otter Woman returned to her lodge she washed the wounds of Gi'inebeg and burned sweet herbs and chanted and prayed and bound his broken bones and dressed his wounds with salve and gave tea of willow bark and winterberry, and rubbed white ashes on his forehead. Gi'inebeg slept.
Otter Woman stayed in this way for many days and caught for him mice to eat and gave him medicine and placed him near the hearth to sleep in comfort as this is the way of serpents even in the warm season. After those days had passed her husband, returned from the hunt with his companions. Entering the lodge Otter Woman brought to him his pipe and tobbaco to smoke. She gave him food and spoke soft words to him. "My husband, I have taken a creature of the forest that has been injured that I may heal him." Her husband nodded and Otter Woman was relieved. After a time her husband spoke to her, "Heal this animal and then release it as your custom is, but remember that you must then begin to care not only for others, but also for yourself for the sake of the son that is in your womb." Otter Woman knew the wisdom of her husbands words and purposed to follow them, and they lay together for the comfort of it.
Next day as she cared for the serpent she said to him, "you are almost well and when you go out from my lodge you must promise that you will do no harm to any of my people." Gi'inebeg looked into her face and said to her, "It is only right that I should repay your kindness". But Otter Woman was uneasy in her heart and said again the same words, Gi'inebeg again looked into her face and spoke softly, "Only the most evil of creatures with the baddest of hearts would repay your kindness with evil, it is because of you I live. So I am in de4bt to your clan and to all your tribe.". Otter Woman was pleased with his words and her spirit was at peace.
The day came soon after, that the serpent was well enough to leave the lodge of Otter Woman and to go about once more in the forest. With great care she removed the splints from his body and the bandages from his wounds. She gave him a frog to eat and said to him, "It is time that you leave my lodge and take yourself from this village. If any man sees you he will kill you, so you must be wise and not linger in the pathways but go directly to the forest". Gi'inebeg replied, "Truly your lodge is a welcome place for all that have need. It is my wish that you be forever honored. I beg you, one last kindness before I go from you. Hold me once more that I may feel the warmth of the heart of Otter Woman and I may remember it to comfort my bones in the cold days. It will be as medicine to me.
Otter Woman hesitated but was filled with pride for the sake of the words of Gi'inebeg and so she lifted Gi'inebeg and held him as an infant close to her. Otter Woman felt a great white fire in her breast and as Gi'inebeg sprang from her arms she saw the mark of his fangs where they had pearced her flesh. Otter Woman looked upon him with great sorrow and said to Gi'inebeg, "Why have you done such an evil thing to the one that returned life to you? I have done only good since first I heard your voice whispering in my heart, having found you to take you into my lodge, how is it that you return so great an evil for good?".
Gi'inebeg hesitated not to speak,"You have done great kindness to me and have given life back to my body just as you have said, even to the comforting of my spirit wich once was heavy for fear of death. All of this you have done and more, before The Great Spirit I declare it is truth. But what you did you did for the sake of your nature and could not do otherwise, likewise what I have done ,I have done for the sake of my nature, how could I have done otherwise? No kindness can make me as Otter Woman and no evil can make Otter Woman as Gi'inebeg for it is not in the nature of us."
Otter Woman understood and went to be with her fathers. Gi'inebeg went out and was not seen again. Only his children were seen and they are killed whenever they are found because they are as he is, for it is in the nature of their tribe and they cannot change.
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Latest reply: May 6, 2009
More wind
Posted May 3, 2009
I awoke this last night many times because of discomfort in my bones. I awoke also in anger to my Grandfather. I was kept from sllep for a long time wondering why this was so since he went over so long ago.
I beleive it is because I have followed his way and am no longer certain that it was good for him to teach me so. I am without a time because of him and have no place now that he is gone. He was strong to keep the way he was taught and did not move from it. He was strong too in keeping me to this path when he raised me.
He was an old man when his second wife gave birth to my mother. His father was killed by whites for the faith of the Ghost Dance and the Prophet. His fathers father was a war cheif and also died at the hands of whites when he laid down for his people sake. This is what I am taught.
I am taught that we are a long river. Water cannot be divided from water. It remains water. I am in one place and those before me in another vessel, we are drinking from the same stream, we eat fish from the same stream, we cannot see those who are before us but they are their, we can not see those who are to come but they are there. We share a common thing, we share thye spilling of blood in birth and in death, in peace and in war. We share a river of tears and we share cool waters that ease our thirst.
My father was Meti, my mother was raised in the manner of myself but she grew to hate it. When time came for me to leave my mothers house I went to be with Grandfather. I was 12 and she was unable to care for us all when my father went over. My father wished me to speak French, my Mother English at home. I remember very little of French and Anishinabe is lost to me as I did not see it as a good thing and was in much dispute with my Grandfather about this. I wish I had learned it to speak. My Grandparents did not force me. I think he was in his mind to punish me by this for being stubborn. To deny to me a part of my blood right. It was keeping in his ways though he never said it was so, perhaps he gave up and that is that. We talked much and some days with heat about wich way I would go in life.
I decided that I would take what is good from both places, I was not wise, I would that I had taken one road or the other I am of two hearts now and am not white and am not Ojibwe. I am not even Meti. I am yet all of these things but none of them. My boat is unsteady in the fast water.
I chose for my children to be in the way of the whites and it is good, but they have lost part of who they are. That is an evil thing.
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Latest reply: May 3, 2009
new day
Posted Apr 25, 2009
I have rested well last night. I have not slept a full night in a long time. Things seem different today even they look different and I feel at peace. Thunderstorms this morning came with the dawn. The thunder rolls across the hills and it brings peace to me. Some thunder is a threat, it cracks and sings battle songs and spits. Today it is a great drum and is like the heartbeat of the earth mother. I used to tell my children the story of the Thunderdog. He is the lead dog in a string and races across the sky to take away the dogs below that do not work and are disobedient to their masters. Thunder is the sound of their feet on the clouds. The evil dogs are taken and added to the string and then forever run the skies with no rest since they have rested already on the Earth when they should have been working. The children made this their favorite weather story and I would recall when I spoke the words, my Grandmother from whom I received the story and felt I was a part of her again. My children most enjoyed stories that frightened them but my wife admonished me always since now and again the younger would awake at sleeping. They all asked for the "fearful" stories though, as well as the "possum tails" that were much mild and pleasant. Telling of stories was a big part of life when I was a youth. We had not TV and and we used batteries for radio so listened only a short time each day.Everyone had a story at night when work was over. We learned what is good and what evil as well as what is virtue and the example to follow in the path of living. Some times we would gather as a community and the people danced and elders told stories and some danced with masks and I would be frightened, my grandmother was always the one that gave me comfort I would bury my face in her dress and then would look again. I feared but I was compelled to watch. Each time the dances were made it was the same till I was ot so young anymore. After the songs and stories and dances the older ones sat in council and talked of things and we knew not what they spoke about but slept or played quietly. I greatly miss my grandparents and have dreamed of them often. For a time of over a week now I think I have had the same dream. Each night they come and Grandmother speaks softley to me and Grandfather stands by the door waiting to open it. I cannot remember Grandmothers words but they are words of comfort and I am as a child. I feel that Grandfather desires me to go with him and we will hunt but as soon as I arise to leave Grandfather he raises his hand and I awake. I feel cheated. I am unable to follow so the dream is a thing of peace and disappointment. I feel well today and so will finish some things that I am doing for my grandchildren. I feel a need to complete these crafts soon then I will begin a new carving or a new bow or such. I never know what the work will be but my grandchildren ask for things and I am glad in my heart to make them. They are farther away from the ways of their kin now than I was and I am so far as to be feeling lost. The toys and things I make them are a binding for them to the ways of those who have gone before them. I have tread two paths and now they divide in the way and I need choose.I am too short in years to stride the path both ways and desire rest for my heart. The way of both seems hard to me and the way of both right to me, of benefit to my family, but only one is the way that is best. I am in habit since I was sixteen and took a wife, to live for others and now perhaps I will live a while for me. This is selfish though and I resist it. I want always to please the creator but am lost how to do this if my nature given by Him says one thing but my heart another. I will prepare supper for my Mother again tomorrow, frybread and squash is her wish I will make fish too though she does not enjoy it much but it is good for her to eat it and she will eat it for me though she is mean and stubborn with others. Then begins a new week. When I think on it it is strange to divide our time in cycles of seven days. Why not according to the months or seasons? Why not make division of days by morning, then midday, then evening and sleep? I as a child thought in these ways. The Sun rise, the heat of day, the cool of evening and rest. I knew not an hour or a month. I knew the heat of Summer, the colouring of leaves, the snow and wind and the rebirth of the forest. The making of gain by the labour of others is the cause of this I think. But I may be mistaken.I need to think on this more since it is a new thought to me. Why is it that Europeans began to divide nature? Always it seemed to me as a young man that they are not happy unless making a division, a marking, or even a wound on the world. One day I was in the hunt, an elk had been given a wound not to death. The man was admonished and we sat for an hour before tracking so the animal would no longer fear. I followed for many hours and a white man came to me and was angry and said I had crossed his property line. I looked about me and asked where this line was and he said 'back a few hundred feet'. I made apology and walked back to where he pointed and spent a long time but could not find any line or any mark at all. Finally the friend of my father came and wondered why I am so long in comming back as they were worried for me since I was just 13 years of age. I told him all, he laughed then was very grave and explained all things concerning lands and boundaries and such. I at first thought he was making sport but the look of him told me no. The white man kept the elk because it was over the "property line", I thought this very unjust. I considered him a thief and wanted to go to his home and take one of his pigs or a goat but I was not allowed. Why?,I used to wonder, do they bend the world when it is a simple thing to be with the world. Always it seemed to me they make a division of things that cannot be divided. The creator made for His chidren one world and knows it is enough but they want to make many little worlds over wich they too are as creators but they are not wise nor are they good to their world or the beings in it. I have never seen a man kill a chicken or such and be thankful because in his heart it is his chicken but he would not be able, even for all the gold in the ground, to make a chicken. So why should he not be thankful to the creator or to thank the chicken for keeping his kin alive another day? I had much to think on as a youth. I caused my parents much vexing in asking the way of things always. I am not sure of these matters still. I am not with enough wisdom to judge the way of others since I am not on their road. What seems good to me is an evil thing to others and what is evil to me others may think as good. I am of a mind now that it is best to let others go their way according to the sun on their path. I lack the will to be a guide and need myself a guide for my own feet. All said I return to my own labours and my own thoughts and am glad in my heart that this is a new day.
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Latest reply: Apr 25, 2009
history and things
Posted Apr 24, 2009
Since I first entered into this place I have become more at rest in it. In my first entry I was so feeling awkward that my eldest son wrote my words for me. Some he changed to be understood since I have not been at writing long. But all had the same sense. Since that time I have found those I am feeling most comfortable with and have made them 'friends'. In reading from the past of the journal I am sometimes embarassed for being open in my heart with strangers but still I remember that to write is a good thing to do for myself and I make discovery of my self in reading from the past. I have found that my mind is becoming weaker in memory and was told because it was alzheimer disease but my doctoer was not certain. He wanted many more testings and such but I refused. It does not matter to me how it is that my mind is so only that it is so. I understand now the way my family has been with me for some time. I made a great resistance to seeing the doctor until I could not remember the name of my eldest daughter and could not see her face in my heart. I knew that I had such a daughter but could not find her in her place. Monday the light went from my left eye and so I have made more testing and wait now to hear. I am unable to say my feelings because they are so many and with great power, besides I know not why the light went nor why it returned after a couple of mornings. When I know Maybe I can oint to my feelings and know them.
I ahve not more to write now here. I will go from the journal and ask a question of the elders in the computer village. Here is the place I write for me there is the place whre I find answers.
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Latest reply: Apr 24, 2009
All too much at once
Posted Apr 14, 2009
Last week my grandson visited for six days. I took him to the wood and we gathered twigs from wild cherries for the rabbits. It is good for them. We saw two deer and together we stalked to 20 paces. My grandson did very well and was very pleased, I too was happy. He brought a video player and some DVD with him to watch at night. Much of it was just noise and flshing figures with some kind of story. He had one video from UK it is Shaun The Sheep. We both were very amused by it. I would like to see more. I enjoyed laughing with my grandson.
I still am having a hard time finding my way around. There are two people at BBC that I would like to write to but cannot find my way. Computers are a mystery to me. I am glad my son gave me this one. But it is a frustration some times.
I saw my doctor Good Friday and have found that my mind is growing weak. I do not know how long or how much longer but he has said it will continue. I am not too young for this but am not an elder or one of so many years that this is common. I fear.
Spring is slow this year. Still snow on the ground and the soil is frozen yet. The geese began returning a few days ago. It was my wish to fly with them. I will return to my original home one day. I have been very homesick since all weekend. I live now in the north of the Great Lakes. There are thirty families here. Once there were many more. Your people (the British) began trading here in the 1700's. My birth home has a French name it is Pere Cheney. My house was one day walk in good weather from Cheney. I pray to return there and Winter over this Fall. My Birth home is no longer. I will make a wikki and stay there on the land. It is a very warm building but also smokey and not much air goes through it but it is good for cold weather. I wish to make it from pikwi but I cannot so will use canvas instead. All night I dreamed of my grandparents and of home I badly want to be there now. My wife will come with me though she hates the cold now. She is good.
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Latest reply: Apr 14, 2009
johnredbear
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