We never ever did figure out who was singing that song. Ma and my uncles tell stories about the shadow people. Shadow people are people who lived before us who kinda watch over us all the time. Always hanging around to help us learn things, and Ma says she’s seen one or two in her time and even heard a couple when she’s really been needing some help. The way my family figures it is, on accounta no one else heard what I did that night, that I must of heard one of the shadow people singing his blessing over the land, its powers and for me too. Big gift, Ma says, and I believe her. Big gift. Ever since that night I been okay with my life here.
Whenever that feeling creeps into my insides about maybe leaving and checking out the action again or whenever I feel myself getting all tied up inside, I head out on that lake in my boat. I find the middle. I cut the engine and lean back across the center of that boat and start bobbing up and down. When I feel the up and down rhythm of that boat kinda like a drumbeat itself, I look up and around at the land and the universe around me and I sing real soft and low, “Soo-wanee-quay, soo-wanee-quay.” Feels like coming home.
Hmmpfh. Sometimes these days old guys like me be wonderin’ all the time whether there’s any magic left in this world. Old people talk about times before the whiteman when magic was all over. Midewewin were big makers of magic an’ the powers of the land could always be counted on for big teachin’s. Nowadays with not lots believin’ anymore, well, we wonder whether that magic mighta moved on somewheres else.
Me I figure the boy’s been kinda my key to callin’ back a little of that magic around here. Us we all need someone or somethin’ to guide us. Sometimes that guide’s funniest-lookin’ guide you can imagine an’ lotsa the time they don’ even know they’re guidin’ you. That’s what the boy’s been for me. Unknowin’ kinda guide for me. He guided lotsa us back then. Dug in so hard tryin’ to learn an’ be parta us he helped us see what we shoulda been doin’ ourselves. Hmmpfh.
Learned good, him. Learned good. Us we laughed like crazy over Wally’n that radio thing. Still do lots. Thing about us Indyuns, laughin’ kinda frees up your insides an’ you remember lot more things than if you get all sad an’ weepy over somethin’. Nothin’ to cry over with that little adventure though. ’Cept maybe that Wally’s still singin’ nights on that radio. Heh, heh, heh.
But hey, me I learned lotsa good sayin’s for next time I’m out there snaggin’. Heh, heh, heh. Old man like me gotta have a good line or two now, can’t just lean on my good looks an’ sleek physique. Heh, heh, heh.
Anyway, what I mean by the boy kinda bein’ a guide for me goes back to a couple weeks after all that settled down. He come around one night askin’ more about this balance. Wonderin’ how he was supposed to know what he didn’t need no more and what he was supposed to keep of that old life. Helped me remember what the old man told me one time too. So that’s what I told him that night, same thing.
See, me I come to Harold one time, musta been about ten or eleven. I really wanted to be like him. Real old, kinda all gentle an’ soft an’ kind but strong too an’ I didn’t know how I was ever gonna get there. Just didn’t know. All confused about what I should be doin’ and what I shouldn’t. So I asked an’ he told me this story.
Way it goes is, a young man was walkin’ around his village one day lookin’ around at his people. He stopped an’ watched everythin’ they were doin’ an’ started to notice how real quiet, gentle an’ good they were with each other. Kinda felt the first stirrin’s of love for them deep in his chest. More he walked around lookin’ more love he felt for them.
So the young man walked over to the old woman of his village an’ started to talk to her. He told her about walkin’ around seein’ the life his people led, the way they were with each other an’ how he loved them for their ways. Told that old woman that he wanted to become a great warrior. Told her he wanted to be a warrior so he could always protect them from anythin’ that might hurt them or make them change. The old woman watched him as he talked an’ she just knew that his words were comin’ from a true place.
Then the young man asked that old woman, he said, “I wanna be the greatest warrior for my people that I can be. And to do that I need the medicine power of the most respected animal in the animal kingdom. If I can have that I will really be a great warrior.”
That’s what he said.
And the old woman looked at the young man, kinda had a tear in her eye, an’ she told him, she said, “I can tell that your heart is pure an that you’re askin’ for this on accounta you really do wanna be a protector. No other reason. So I’m gonna give you this. But first you gotta be able to tell me who this animal brother or sister is that’s got the most respect of all the animals. Do that an’ I’ll give you that medicine power.”
Well, I guess that young man just kinda got all happy on accounta it sounded like such an easy question. So he yelled out, “The animal that’s got the most respect from its animal brothers an’ sisters is the grizzly bear! It’s the grizzly bear on accounta he’s fierce an’ strong an’ fearless.”
But that old woman just shook her head real sad-like an’ told him, “No. It’s not brother bear. There’s another.”
So the young man thought a little longer an’ then he said, “Well then, it’s gotta be the wolverine on accounta the wolverine’s a great fighter, fearless an’ scary.”
But one more time the old woman shook her head all sad an’ told the young man, “No. That’s not the one. There’s another.”
One by one the young man named all the most fearless, strongest, biggest, fiercest animals he could think of but each time the old woman just shook her head an’ said, “No. There’s another.”
Finally, after a long time the young man hung his head real depressed an’ told her, he said, “I don’t know who this is. So I guess I can’t have this medicine power an’ I guess I can’t be a great warrior.”
But the old woman reached out her hand an’ touched the young man, looked deep into his eyes an’ said, “No. Because your heart is so pure I’m gonna give you this one’s name an’ I’m gonna let you have this great medicine power because I know you’ll use it in a good way.
“The animal that’s got the most respect from his animal brothers an’ sisters … is the mole. Tiny, blind little mole that lives in the ground is the greatest warrior in the animal kingdom.”
Well, the young man could hardly believe his ears. “But how can that be?” he asked. “The mole’s so small, can’t fight, can’t even see.”
The old woman smiled. Them old people they always smile when they’re gonna lay some learnin’ on you, even now. She smiled an’ told the young man, she said, “Reason the mole’s got the most respect is on accounta he lives in constant touch with Mother Earth. All his life always stays in touch with her. That way he gets wise. Gets wise so that even though his eyes are bad he learns to see another way. The way of the spirit.
“Other reason he gets most respect is on accounta when the mole’s busy burrowin’ through the earth like he does he’s always gettin’ vibrations from the surface from whoever else is movin’ around up there. So in order for him to learn when he’s in danger or not that mole will dig his way to the surface an’ have a quick look around. That way he learns when a rabbit runs over him or when there’s even a fox chasin’ that rabbit. Knows the way a bear walks across the ground, a man, knows the way of everythin’ on accounta he’s gonna up to take a sniff whenever he’s felt somethin’ movin around.
“An’ that’s why the mole’s got the most respect of all his animal brothers an’ sisters. That’s why.
“Because even though he might get eaten, even though he might be injured, even though he might feel a great deal of pain on accounta it, that mole always takes the time to investigate what he feels. That’s why. And you gotta have that same medicine power to be a great warrior.”
The young man went away to think about it. Thought about it long time an’ he went on to become a great warrior who was loved an’
respected by all the people for his kindness, fairness an’ softness as well as his strength, fightin’ and brav’ry. That warrior always took the time to investigate his feelin’s before he did anything.
That’s what I told the boy that day, just like old Harold told me. He sat there for a while thinkin’ it over an’ when he looked up there was kinda tears in the corners of his eyes an’ he was smiling. He didn’t say anything then, just sat there smilin’ all glitter-eyed an’ happy.
An’ you know, ever since that day that boy’s always walkin’ around checkin’ out his insides whenever he’s gotta make a choice. Sometimes it takes days but he’s diggin’ for the surface just like that mole, kinda sniffin’ around, investigatin’ what he feels. An’ he ain’t really been wrong yet. Still listens to that blues music an’ dances around all crazy sometimes, still talks big dreams an’ still likes to go to town an’ check things out, but he always comes back. Comes back for more learnin’. Comes back for more of himself an’ for more home inside.
Told you he learned good, didn’t I?
BOOK FOUR
LOOKIN’ JAKE
The land is a feeling. That’s what Keeper says all the time and I was just beginning to get an idea of what he meant by the second fall I was home. See, according to Keeper all the fuss and trouble the government has with us Indians is on accounta the land. They call it “the Indian problem” and they figure it’s all about us wanting our own governments and to be able to run things on our own. But it’s not, according to Keeper. This so-called Indian problem is really a land problem. It’s always been that way, he says. The way Keeper tells it is that most of them politicians are pretty much aware of the way the land was taken on the sly. So ever since then they’ve been carrying around big blanket of guilt, he says. They put us on reserves telling us we could live the old way there, hunt and fish and trap, do all the things we used to do before the whiteman got here. Said it was for our own benfit. But according to Keeper it was for their benefit, not ours. He says putting us on all these reserves kept us Indians from talking a lot to each other. Couldn’t get together and couldn’t put together any really big plans. Still afraid of a big Indian uprising, I guess. Way Keeper sees it, the government came along and told all the Indians if they put down their arrows and went off to live on these reserves and were good little Indians then maybe one of these days we’d be able to get some of those arrows back. Down through the years they gave us a few back but they kept all the points and feathers and only gave us the shaft. And we been pretty much getting the shaft ever since. Funny guy, that Keeper.
Anyway, what I was meaning to say was that the land is a feeling. The reason the Indians want all these land claims settled is on accounta they wanna protect their connection with the land. It isn’t on accounta they want all of North America back like some people believe. Keeper says nobody in their right mind wants something back that someone else has already wrecked. They just wanna protect their connection. Land is the most sacred thing in the Indian way of seeing. It’s where life comes from and all the teachings and philosophy that kept Indians alive through everything that happened to them all over all these years comes from the land. Lose that connection you lose yourself, according to most people around here. Lose that connection you lose that feeling of being a part of something that’s bigger than everything. Kinda tapping into the great mystery. Feeling the spirit of the land that’s the spirit of the people and the spirit of yourself. That’s what I was learning all along but I needed to get a lot closer to it and that’s kinda what happened that second fall I was home.
See, there’s something I do even now that I first done that second fall. I don’t know why I started really, except that it felt like a good idea at the time. Keeper says it was the first stirrings of that woman side of me calling out directions. Intuition, the gift of the mother. Anyway, it’s kinda become a personal ritual and every fall at the same time everyone here knows that I’m gonna disappear across the lake in a canoe for four days of living on the land all alone. Usually I paddle in for a whole day, find a good campsite, set up and just wander around out there, looking around, studying things. There’s a huge silence you discover when you get way beyond things like houses and roads and motors. It can be kinda scary at first but once you get used to it it’s like the most beautiful sound you ever heard and it fills up your insides until you think you’re gonna pass out from the pressure. A beautiful, roaring silence. A silence that’s full of everything. When your ears get used to it you start to hear things you never ever heard in your life. Things you never knew were there. Things like the whispers of old people’s voices when the wind blows through the trees. Little gurgles and chuckles like babies when the water from a creek rolls over the rocks. The almost holy sound of an eagle’s wings when it flaps above you, kinda like he’s breathing on you. Even something as quiet as your paddle moving through the water’s got a silky sound like the ripple of a lady’s shawl in a fancy dance. Far-off thunder sounding like a big drum in the sky and all the snaps and crackles, rubbings and scrapings that goes on in the bush at night when you can’t see anything. A thick blanket of sounds that tells you that darkness has a life too. A beautiful silence. The most beautiful music I ever heard. Full of all the notes of life and living we miss when we get away from it too long. The sounds that connect you to yourself and your life.
That’s why I go. On accounta when I get back and start moving around with people again I always got that silence to fall back on when things get strange. That silence gets to be a part of me by me going out there and being a part of it. I didn’t know that then, that first fall. All I knew was that there was a feeling telling me it was a good idea to go. I wanted to head for that area just beyond the other side of the lake where I was born. The traditional land my grampa trapped. The beginnings, I guess. Something inside me was telling me that I needed to go there. So I talked about it with Keeper and Jackie and Stanley’n Jane to see what they thought and everybody figured it was a good idea.
Course Ma was all worried when I told her. Being a bush woman all her life, Ma knows how tough it is to get by out there if you don’t know what you’re doing and how fast things can change out there when you don’t know how to read the land or the signs it gives you.
“Sure you wanna go alone, my boy?”
“Hey-yuh. Been spending lotsa time with Gilbert and Charlie this summer. Been watching how they do things and they showed me lots. I’ll be okay.”
“How far back you gonna go? Not far, I hope.”
“Kaween,” I said. “No. Not far. Other side of the lake, maybe one portage back, two maybe.”
“Holee. That’s far. Lotta wolf an’ bear around out there.”
“Hey-yuh. Lot.”
“You know your grampa’s old trapline land starts back there?”
“Hey-yuh. That’s a big part of the reason I wanna go there. Being home’s great, Ma, it really is, but I feel like if I don’t go there and see for myself where it all started for me, it’s not really gonna be like I’ve come home at all yet.”
“I know. Us we can only give you parta yourself back here. Help you learn about this place an’ us. Yourself. But’s a big parta you out there in that bush. Maybe now’s the time you went there an’ picked it up an’ brought it home.”
“Yeah, that’s what it kinda feels like. I don’t know why I gotta go there. I only know that I do.”
“Still, maybe Jackie oughta go with you first time? Good bush Indyun, that Jackie.”
“Kaween. Jackie’s one of the ones said I should go alone in the first place.”
“Really?”
“Hey-yuh. We both figure I’ll be okay. And I just kinda need some time alone for a while. To think. Get away from things. Fish. Walk around. Find something.”
She was looking at me kinda different by this time, nodding her head real slow like she does when she starts to understand or see something she missed the first time around. Her eyes were smiling now and she reached out t
o touch my cheek with one warm brown hand.
“Hey-yuh. I know. Your papa useta do the same thing every year too. Useta just get up real early, load up a canoe and paddle off by himself. Us we never knew where he was going, just that he was going off alone again. Never said much about it when he got back but he was always more, bigger kinda when he got back. You looked just like him there for a minute,” she said, stroking my cheek real soft. “Hey-yuh. Lot. So I guess it’s okay. Runs in the family, I guess.”
“Hey-yuh. Jackie said him’n Stanley do that too all the time. Says our uncles go off alone too lots. Jackie says it helps him. Gets him kinda peaceful inside.”
“Yeah. I know. Maybe you ask Keeper sometime to tell you about it. Been a parta what us Indyuns do for a long, long time.”
“So you’re not gonna worry?”
“Oh, I’m still gonna worry. Oh yes, me I’ll worry. But I know too that you gotta do it. You’ll learn lots out there you’re gonna need. Lots.”
“Wanna help me get ready then?”
“ ’Kay. How much you wanna take?”
“Not lots. Wanna travel light.”
“How light is light?”
“Light light. Just what I’m gonna need.”
“ ’Kay then. Only thing is … how you gonna get across that lake with a stove and stereo in that canoe?”
If you ever wanna get the idea of how it feels to fly, all you really gotta do is paddle a canoe alone across a northern lake when it’s calm. When there’s no wind and no waves it’s like moving through glass. You look over the sides and it’s like you’re suspended above everything. Water so clear you float over the rocks and boulders and logs on the bottom like an eagle over land, seeing the fish kinda scatter and picking out their favorite hiding places as you pass. If you look out over the front it’s like a magic curtain of cloud. Big shiny silver curtain that parts with the tip of the canoe, revealing the lake like you’ve never seen it. Things coming into view all slow and gradual, quiet and peaceful like you’re soaring over all of it. Paddle faster and it’s like you’re flapping your wings harder and the land passing beneath you moves by like a dream. It takes your breath away and really makes it hard to travel very far very fast. One of the rewards of being alone in a canoe early in the morning is that feeling of flying.
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