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know my mother. And this is Gidagaakoons."
Gi'wita'wisek studied us with the curiosity my father had joked about and then offered us a broad
toothless smile. "I have some squirrel stew from supper, if my boys have not eaten it all up by
now." We set off up the narrow path toward the lights above.
The stew was thick and rich, brimming with chunks of meat and squash. We sopped up the gravy
with cornbread fried crisp in duck lard and washed everything down with chokecherry tea. As we
ate, little eyes peered from behind a worn blanket separating the main room from the sleeping
room. When Gi'wita'wisek looked in their direction, they backed off giggling.
"You two, come out now. Where is the sleeping? All I hear is laughing back there." They stepped
shyly into the room, the little one with his finger in his mouth the older one holding his brother's
hand. "This is Papa'gine, grasshopper, always jumping about, and the big one is No'dinens, Little
Wind. He is a fast runner, too fast for me now." They leaned into their mother's back to hide and
play eye games with Ickwe'saigun. "These are visitors from White Earth. They come to see
Uncle."
I looked around the bleak little cabin and stopped to study the medicine shield that hung on the
back of the door. It included the symbols of the loon and the turtle, but most prominent, in the
eastern quadrant was the silhouette of a wolf's head. Uncle. She referred to him as Uncle, I
thought.
"So you are Wolf Clan." Vincent said what I had been thinking as well. Chances were good that
Ickwe'saigun had fathered these boys. But since Gi'wita'wisek and he were of the same clan, they
would never speak of it. I could never know or even ask if these boys were my half- brothers. Nor
did it matter. According to Anishinaa'bee custom, children were sacred in their own right, a gift to
the entire tribe from the Gitchi-Manitou, no matter what their origin.
Gi'wita'wisek nodded and then continued her introductions. "This is Gidagaakoons and this is
Annie. And this is Nookomis Dinah. I do not want you pulling tricks on them, hear?" The two
nodded insincerely in our direction and then ran back to giggle behind the blanket.
With the meal finished and the conversation waning, my father got up and thanked Gi'wita'wisek
silently. "Maajaan. Time we headed over to my camp."
We hoisted our packs and set off into the pitch-black night. Though the path was rocky and dotted
with low-lying shrubs, we used touch and hearing to feel our way. I stayed beside Nookomis Dinah
in case she needed an arm to steady herself while the men forged ahead and talked in low tones.
In time we could see the flickering light of a fire ahead. It illuminated the rest of our steps.
***
The Present: So that's why there's no mention of Nana. Cathleen closed the notebook to reread Vincent
Landreville's obituary. Delia Landreville said that marriage could only be with someone outside the clan if
they were to remain Ojibway. Vincent and Nana were both Bear Clan, so there could be no marriage
between them without cutting themselves off from the tribe. Being a part of the people, being connected
to their past was everything, was even worth not being together.
Children were sacred no matter what their origin, so Elijah had been sacred in his own right, to Nana and
Vincent and to The People. What of the other children then, the ones adopted out, the ones destroyed by
residential schools, the ones killed from the inside out?
"It becomes a circle." Nookomis Mina explained the next morning. "For years these children have
returned to us, or worse, they have gone to the Wayaabishkiiwed cities, not Indian, not white, angry,
without a path. They drink, take drugs and beat their wives and kids. They steal and kill, go to jail. Their
families are taken away by the same system, and the circle begins again."
"It's a circle that needs to be broken." Cathleen thought of the armed men at Wounded Knee and
wondered if their way would work.
"Yesterday I convinced the welfare office to surrender Donna Stone's kids to the tribal Elders. We found
them a place among the people while their parents are in detox." She shrugged. "There are many ways to
break the circle and much healing needed among us. Too few healers to handle the load." The old
woman's eyes twinkled as she looked at her.
"You can't heal this kind of thing with ghost dances or Indian magic, Nookomis Mina. It's a problem in
need of profound solutions."
"You don't think so?" she asked. "Look inside yourself, Wase'ya-Cathleen. The answer lies there. You
tell me what is the best cure for losing yourself, losing your way along the path?" The old woman's words
struck deep into the questions Cathleen had been asking herself. Questions without answers, she thought,
questions that multiplied like cancer cells to choke off the spirit. Answers that once voiced would betray
family and self.
"It is time for me to go." Nookomis Mina kissed her cheek and rested her warm hands on her shoulders
as if to draw out the pain. "Such a heavy spirit for one so young. I wish I could take your burden and
bury it in the ground for you." She kissed Cathleen's cheek again and then left silently.
Cathleen sat pondering Mina's words. Lost souls, Nana. We're all a bunch of lost souls, aren't we? dying
from the inside out. She thought back to the kids who lived in Nana's cabin and smiled to herself for
solving the mystery. They would have been lost souls too, if you hadn't stepped in and snapped them up
from emptiness, turned their hollows into a home.
And now you're trying to save me, right? From the other side of death, you're trying to guide me. Well
maybe there isn't anything left to save, no one worth guiding. Maybe it's too late.
She thought back to the Mounties' threat, to the destruction her father had wrought upon the life of
Maxwell Hendry. Hendry was the only one to stand up to daddy's threats, and look what happened to
him. It wasn't enough that daddy could get his government cronies to question the easements, condemn
his out-buildings and declare his dairy herd diseased. He had the police harass his family every time they
took the car into town, had the bank call in his loans, his neighbours kill his dog and leave the carcass for
his children to find. And still it wasn't enough. No, daddy wouldn't rest until Hendry was dead.
What was the point of reading the rest of the story? What could she possibly get out of this journey into
the past? But then there was nothing else could she do to fill in the void until the funeral. She retrieved the
notebook and sank once again into the armchair.
***
The Past: "Ickwe'saigun's camp was made up of one large dome-shaped structure, called
waginogan in our language, and one smaller tipi, fashioned in the Lakota style. Since it was
spring, there was a fire pit outside, with smooth flat rocks in a semicircle around it.
"I built the waginogan for you and Nookomis to use," my father said. "Vincent and I will sleep in
the tipi. Time to turn in. We can talk in the morning." And so we parted on that magic night.
The scent of sweetgrass, and sage greeted us as we entered our dwelling. Nookomis pointed out
where the sprigs and braids hung on the walls. The ground had been pounded hard and laid thick
with bullrushes so that the dust would not rise when we moved around. My father had provided us
thick bearskins and deer hide groundcovers for sleeping. And someone, probably Gi'wita'wisek,
had put burning embers and hot stones in the little fire pit to take the remaining chill off the place. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]