“What are the healers of the Mide-wi-win doing to stop the sickness?” an elder from the mainland asked.
The Old Man pursed his lips, gazing into their faces as the fire flickered. He had been the band’s healer for longer than most had been alive, bringing the sky medicine to the Anishinaabek as well as a smattering of herbal knowledge. He had spoken with the spirits on the other side of death, begging them to intervene when the life of one of the Amiks was in the balance. He had named them, interpreted their dreams, spoken to their spirit guides, and chanted over them. He had made the amulets to protect the warriors on their raids. He had fashioned charms for would-be lovers, childless women, grieving widows, and hunters to help them to seek their prey. He had made them laugh and cry on winter nights beyond count around the lodge fires and had held every babe of the band in his arms.
Yet now, he had no answers.
“I won’t lie to you, brothers,” he said at last. “Each tribe from here to the great ocean Zhewitaganibi has thrown its most powerful medicine at these spirits and yet this disease cannot be stopped. It is as if these manitos are grasshoppers, eating everything in their path. And perhaps we too will be eaten, and soon.”
The men in the lodge groaned at these words and several muttered, “Liar!” to their neighbors. Others speculated that the Old Man was nothing but a faker and a charlatan. “You, a member of the Mide-wi-win, claim that nothing can be done?” a visiting head man asked, incredulous. “What good is your medicine if it fails when we need it most?”
“Brothers, listen. I have never lied to you, and my medicine has always been strong on your behalf,” the Old Man said. “But all of you know that I have always been a trader first, a teller of tales second, and only then a priest of the Mide-wi-win. So what I tell you now is the truth that might save you, not some shuffling lie to put you in the path of harm. I tell you truly, even Manabozho could not save us from this plague.”
At that the lodge grew silent, for invoking the name of Manabozho, the right hand of Kitchi Manito, was not done lightly, and respect was called for when his name was spoken.
The Old Man felt a stirring in his tobacco pouch. It was that of the tiny doll which lived there; the leather doll which stirred whenever it was time to hold a ceremony or host a feast. The Old Man took the doll from his pouch and swallowed hard as he gazed upon its inscrutable face.
“Now, I will tell you this,” he said when all were quiet once more. “This night I will visit with the spirits and speak to any who will accept me. I do not know what will be waiting there, but perhaps they will have a solution. But if they have no answer for us, I will tell you so your own spirits will not blame me if we are all swept away.”
This news was greeted in silence, and after a few moments, the men rose and returned to their lodges, leaving the Old Man and Misko alone.
The Old Man sighed. “I do not like confronting the spirits,” he confided. “There are things waiting on the other side of the curtain that divides the world of the Anishinaabek from the land of the dead.”
Misko poked at the fire. “What things, Father?”
“Things a man should not see.” For years, the Old Man had traveled among the most dangerous of the Ojibwe’s enemies and had risked his life on the long trading route to the south. And yet he feared the manitos of the other world almost as much as the Haudenosaunee. “Well, perhaps not that much,” he shook his head and muttered to himself.
Misko peered at him. “What?”
“It is nothing,” the Old Man waved the question away. “But I need Ashagi to make me some tea.”
He indicated a bag hanging from the posts of the lodge and fished a wrapping of birch bark from within. Plucking three shreds from the bag he hesitated a moment and then plucked a fourth. In his outstretched palm was the way to the dead.
“Bring it to me in the sweat lodge,” he said before turning into the night. “And do not let Ashagi or any others taste it.”
Ashagi brought the bowl of mushroom tea herself to where the Old Man waited, singing and swaying in the darkness. The stones of the sweat lodge were still warm enough to take off all of one’s clothes and she found Animi-ma’lingan waiting there as naked as the day he was born except for the cowrie shell he wore on a cord around his neck.
“Here, Father, I have brewed it for you as rich as I could make it,” she said, handing him the best wooden bowl she and Misko owned.
He gave her a mournful smile. “Miigwech, Ashagi, you are a sweet one.”
When she had gone, the Old Man settled into glum thoughts on the limitations of medicine, especially his own. His healing powers had never amounted to much, and often as not, he was surprised when he effected a cure. How could he find a way to defeat this festering disease when the wisest men of all the tribes extending to the great salt water could not? The Haudenosaunee had attacked the disease with their false face ritual, wearing masks to frighten it away; this proved worthless. Others had placed straw warriors on the roofs of their lodges, again to frighten away the disease, but also useless. What could he, more of a storyteller, a spy, and a trader than a man of medicine, do to protect his people?
He contemplated the cup and breathed in the woody musk of the tea. By itself the tea provided a pleasant euphoria, undulating colors and sounds, along with strange visions of the other world. But Animi-ma’lingan decided to go deeper this evening with a mixture that his mentor, the shaman Wabeno, had prepared, a black powder with an oily sheen.
None among the lesser Mide-wi-win knew what magic Wabeno had laden in the powder, only that a pinch could bring frightful visions and that death was the fate of those who took too much.
The Old Man sighed and placed two pinches of Wabeno’s powder into a bowl, grinding it fine with the perfect sphere of his medicine stone. He sprinkled the black dust into the tea Ashagi had made, stirring it with his little finger while reciting a protective spell. All this time he had been breathing deeply, taking his breath in long and slow while calming his thoughts.
“I am flying, I am flying
Flying to you, flying to you
I am coming, I am coming
Hear me coming, hear me coming
On eagles’ wings, I am coming
I am waiting, I am listening
I am listening for your wisdom,
I am listening for your council.”
Breathing deep, he expelled his breath with a roar, making the face of a cougar with his eyes fierce and his tongue stretched forth, his teeth bared in an open-mouthed snarl. Three times he exhaled, roaring louder each time to warn any bad things in the other world that he was coming. Then, slowly, the Old Man brought the cup to his lips and drank until it was empty, swallowing the dregs of the mushrooms and gagging at the texture of snails. A queasy feeling settled over him as he leaned back against the wall of the sweat lodge in a state of dread. He had fallen into its draught only once before, encountering monsters and demons from which he had only barely escaped. The spirits were sneaky and pitiless, and there was no reasoning with them. It was no wonder the Anishinaabek feared them.
“I am not a brave man,” he muttered, “but let me be brave now.”
As the medicine settled over him, the Old Man took the bones of an owl from his bag and scattered them three times over the straw mat on which he sat. They told him nothing, just as he had expected. For Old Man Animi-ma’lingan knew the cause of the scarring sickness, yet had spared his people an explanation for now. He knew that far beyond the falling water of Kitchi-gaugeedjwun, a great canoe, large as an island with the wings of a gull, had made its way up the long river from the salt sea. At first, those who met the strangers thought they were dead men, or possibly only shadows, wdjibbon, because they were creatures who looked like men, but had no color.
But Animi-ma’lingan was sure that the shadows were from the same tribe of demons that had destroyed the realms of the far south almost two lifetimes ago. Barely a moon after their canoes had arrived, the pocks began appearing on t
he skin of all who lived within a day’s walk of their landing. And then the sickness spread from band to band and tribe to tribe, killing thousands.
As for the shadow men, they had disappeared back down the river in their monstrous canoe, speaking through an Oneida slave of their plan to return in order to trade.
Even the wisest among the shamans and priests of the afflicted tribes could not determine how the hair-faced demons had unleashed the disease, for all knew that it was impossible for a wounded man to wound others from afar. It seemed impossible that they could cast their magic from a distance. At best, the strangers might have evil spirits at their command. But why kill those they professed a desire to trade with?
It was a conundrum that perhaps only the spirits could answer. The Old Man took up his drum, feeling comfort in the beat, and sang as the walls of the lodge began to warp and twist in strange ways that made him laugh at first.
“Ah, ha, ha, ha, ya!” He giggled as the colors within the darkness began to shift and flow as if they were a stream.
Always when he visited the other world he kept a foot in this one, but just as often there came a tug from the other direction and that was what the Old Man feared most, that he would be pulled too deeply into the realm of the manitos and would not find his way back. In the past the Old Man’s visions had taken him up through the smoke hole to the sky where a sense of exhilaration released him to the spirits. But this time he felt himself retreating under waves of warm sensations that washed him down to the very center of his being. He was drawn within his very bones, traveling down tunnels of flesh, blood, and marrow. Beneath him, the floor of the lodge twisted with the bodies of millions of interlocking insects, writhing beneath his crossed legs, an unbearable sight.
Strange things moved along the wall as shadows, slowly melting into the mists of the lodge. The shadow of a bear brushed by as a long streak of brown. A bobcat ran through the sweat lodge, somersaulting in a frenzy before climbing a lodge pole and disappearing into the blackness above. The walls of the lodge began to throb as if with a heartbeat and the hot stones around him glowed in soft colors, red, green, pink, and blue. A strange singing began that grew louder and louder until its voice thundered in his ears. With a start, he realized it was his own voice speaking words he did not understand.
Dimly, he sensed a figure taking shape in the patterns of the bark on the far wall. Slowly, a warrior with a twisted body and the head of a crow took shape against the wall, its beak clacking an unintelligible language. The crow’s head twisted on the human torso in agitation, its beak gaping at words it could not form. Its eyes glinted with malice—golden, remote and utterly inhuman—and with an echoing caw, it disappeared with a clapping of wings that circled the lodge with a violent speed, shaking Animi-ma’lingan to his knees.
Yet through it all, Animi-ma’lingan kept drumming and chanting as he had been trained by the elders of the Mide-wi-win. The beat of the shallow hand drum and the rhythm of his words were the cords that kept him tethered to grandmother earth. Without them, he might slip away to where the crow man lurked, a journey he dared not contemplate.
Nor did he dare to close his eyes, for as terrifying as the visions were amid the steam of the lodge, even worse were those arising from the darkness of his own mind. No, better to see things as they were, and to see the walls of the lodge against which they wavered.
At last, when there was a lull in the visions and he was certain the crow man had gone, the Old Man asked his questions in a small and trembling voice. “Tell me, spirits, tell me how to save our people.”
It was all he dared to ask. A braver man might have called on some particular spirit or ancestor, but the Old Man was fearful of what might come his way. It was well known that men were at the mercy of the things which lived in the other world, for the manitos hovered everywhere, invisible yet privy to every movement, whim, lust, or wish of every brother and sister. Yet mere men could not grasp their mystery in return, except through the portal of the Mide’s drug. And that was no shield against them, only an opening, only a way of seeing into their world.
“Tell me, tell me,” the Old Man repeated, making a chant of his petition.
By now, the visions had waned to shadows skittering along the wall. The Old Man looked down at his hand and saw the lines of his palm writhing as worms and earwigs.
“Tell me, tell me how to save our people,” he said, emboldened as the dreams lessened.
Gradually, he noticed a blackness creeping across the floor from the walls at the opposite ends of the lodge; a darkness that swept from the east as well as the west. It was a fire, he thought, the lodge was on fire, and yet the flames were black. He watched as the dark tendrils fingered their way just above the stones lining the floor. The black flames swept to the center of the lodge, extinguishing the coals of a small fire he had built for company. He closed his eyes for a moment and a red light the color of the setting sun exploded in the center of his head, just above and between his eyebrows. When he opened his eyes, the black fire were gone and his coals had rekindled.
The rest of the night was given to strange thoughts and burbling sounds. He heard a hollow laugh, but it was retreating far away. He contemplated the clacking of the crow and the meaning of the dark flames, finding no answers. It was always thus, he thought. A petitioner traveled to the other world seeking answers, hoping for words and clear direction, yet the spirits always spoke in the language of dreams, requiring interpretation. This, Animi-ma’lingan knew, could be a burden beyond the ability of all but the most skillful elders of the Mide-wi-win. Alas, they were too far away to help.
The Old Man wasn’t the only one who had strange dreams that night. In the time before dawn when the sky began to mull a dim gray, the hummingbird, Nenookaasi, whispered a dream in Misko’s ear. In his dream he was walking behind a great blond bear along a lakeshore toward the blinding sun. There on the beach, his father sat naked on a log, nodding as he went by without saying a word.
If it had been the threat of illness alone, the Ojibwe of the Amik clan might have remained on their island home of Kitchi Minissing, clinging together in the hope of finding a cure for the advancing disease.
But the memories of the red sickness eight summers before still lingered. Each summer they had marked a tree near the village to remember the passage of time since the plague, which had also been drawn on the Old Man’s birch scroll as the most important event of that year. Their numbers had grown to seventy-four in the intervening years, either through birth or the adoption of refugees from the mainland, but most were of an age to recall the red death.
Then came news from the west that the Dakotas were mounting a massive raid that summer. Clansmen living on the island of Mo-ning-wuna-kaun-ing at the westernmost end of Kitchi Gami sent word that the Dakota had plans to sweep all along the coast, picking off one village at a time with overwhelming force. They themselves had taken flight to the north shore of the lake, being too few in number to resist.
Naturally, the men of the Amiks leapt to the cry of mounting a defense.
“Brothers, if we meet them at the portage of the Kiwewina we can ambush them in force,” Nika proposed in a hastily arranged council.
All agreed that Lone Goose’s plan was a good one. The enemy would have to portage their canoes at the break in the river on the Kiwewina peninsula that jutted as a long finger into Kitchi Gami.
Even Misko approved the plan. Privately, he thought the threat of the raid was the same empty rumor that had stormed along the coast every summer for as long as anyone could remember, yet was always given credence. Nonetheless, it would get Nika out of his hair for a season and provide the young braves of the band with an adventure.
But even he wondered, if the warnings were true, how many warriors of the enemy might be met there, and when might they arrive? The red sickness had killed more than half of the Ojibwe when it had swept their lodges eight summers before, taking many of their best warriors.
“It is said that
there are more than four hundred warriors on our trail,” said Wajiiw, the Mountain, the elder whose own days as a warrior were long past.
“There is always talk of such things,” Nika snorted. “No one knows. Perhaps it is less than fifty.”
“Perhaps, but our brothers on Mo-ning-wuna-kaun-ing would not send such a warning and flee themselves if it were a small matter,” Wajiiw replied. “And it is a long paddle to Kiwewina with little time to collect the warriors along the way.”
“Ehn, but that is our path if we aim to save our people,” Nika said. He had fully vested himself as the war leader of the coast, and if it were not by acclaim, then at the least, no one dared to oppose him.
“These are brave words, brother, and I honor you for them,” Wajiiw said patiently. “But we are also threatened by the sickness coming our way. If you and every warrior on the coast journey far to the west, who will protect those who remain if we are overwhelmed by sickness? And who among our warriors will be left if there are too many of the enemy to stand against? They may outnumber you three to one for all you know.”
“Ah, even ten against one, brother, but that is what we must do or all will be lost,” Nika replied. “I have been to the west and know a place where we can trap them like fish in a net.”
“Yes, Nika, but I was with the war chief Ma’linganbawi when he took our war to the Odugamies and many of our brothers never returned,” Wajiiw replied. “You cannot speak of the few fighting against many, for that is how Ma’linganbawi led us to our doom. And remember also that the Dakota were not touched by the red sickness that slaughtered our own people,” Wajiiw added. “They remained whole and well beyond the lakes and marshes which divide their hunting grounds from ours. Their numbers have risen, while we are less than half of what we were.”
The squabbling over war plans and defenses went on for some time, escalating into heated intimations of cowardice and a reckless patriotism.
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