“Once there was a river just like the one we sleep beside this evening in a land far beyond the waves of Mishi Gami,” the Old Man said. “And on this river lived a band of the Dakota, the same as us, all brothers and sisters, uncles, aunties, and cousins under their lodges. Among them were two lovesick companions, Little Crow and Clover, who could not have enough of each other. So smitten were they that often, Little Crow failed to rise for the hunt in the morning so that he might linger by Clover’s side and watch her eyes open with the sunrise. And Clover neglected her chores because in her eyes, Little Crow burned brighter than the sun and she could see nothing else. The people of the Dakotas just laughed at them, knowing that a hot fire soon burns itself out.
“Then one day, the Dakota learned that a strong party of Ojibwe warriors had entered their hunting grounds in a fleet of canoes, threatening all before them. Every warrior of the Dakotas was called to the defense, including Little Crow.
“‘Alas, I must join my brothers,’” he told sweet Clover that night as they huddled beneath his robe. ‘You will love me even more when I have killed my share of the cowardly Ojibwe.’”
The Old Man bugged his eyes and curled his hands like claws at this last bit, producing gasps and chuckles in Ashagi’s lodge, for all listeners knew the warriors of the Ojibwe were no cowards.
“‘But I will love you less if you do not return,’ his wife replied sadly, ‘for there will be nothing left of you to love.’
“‘I must join my brothers or wear the mark of a coward,’ Little Crow replied. ‘What would my brothers say if I stayed behind with the women while they risked their lives to defend us? I will return with eagle feathers in my hair, one for each Ojibwe scalp I have taken.’
“Clover begged him to stay, offering every pleasure that a woman can provide, but when the war drums sounded the next evening and Little Crow began dancing arrayed in his paint and finest clothes, she saw it was useless. That night their love burned hot as the coals of the fire before which we sit, but her heart was cold as a winter stone as she watched Little Crow paddle upriver with his brothers the next morning. Off to war they went, eager to cut out the hearts of the cruel Ojibwe warriors!”
The Old Man leapt to his feet and shouted this last line, shaking his turtle shell rattles and sweeping his arms in a circle above the listeners who shouted back their approval.
“Clover stood on the shore, watering the river with her tears and reaching out to her lover in a final plea, but still he paddled on. ‘Don’t worry my love,’ Little Crow called back over his shoulder as his canoe pushed upriver. ‘Do not cry, sweet honey Clover. I will return! I swear by all our ancestors, the sun and stars, and the Great Spirit himself that I will return to you before the next full moon.’”
The Old Man paused in his story to load his pipe, plucking an ember from the waning fire and puffing, lost in thought, as if he had forgotten the story.
“What happened then, Father?” the youngest among them asked.
“Eh? Oh, the sort of thing that always happens when you care too much and feel too deeply. The sad thing.” He looked around the lodge, his old eyes resting on each of his listeners, drawing them even further into his tale. “Every day, Clover stood by the river, watching for Little Crow’s return. She stood there until the summer moon rose each night and watched as it waned until it was as empty and dark as her own heart. And then she watched as the moon waxed its way full, knowing that it was the same moon that Little Crow beheld each night, and wondering if he still thought of her. She wondered if he missed her as much as she missed him. Yet, on the night of the blossoming moon, she readied herself for the fulfillment of Little Crow’s promise.
“And there came Little Crow in his canoe with his war lance propped high on the bow with an eagle feather tied to its shaft, spinning gaily in the breeze.” The Old Man paused, pointing with the stem of his pipe as if tracing the canoe’s path down the river. “And there she saw her lover at the stern, returning just as he had promised. But when the prow of his canoe crested the shore it was Little Crow’s body she found, his chest pierced with seven arrows. Little Crow had kept his promise; with the grace of the Great Spirit he had returned to his love, but not as the man she knew.” Solemnly, the Old Man tapped the ashes of his pipe in his palm, and then looked up again. “He had become the Ojibwe’s porcupine.”
Some laughed by the fire and two young girls cried for Clover’s broken heart, while several old women sat silent over their pipes, thinking of their own husbands who had never returned from the raids. No one could deny that it was the way of things to have a dear one snatched by fate. Eya, it could happen to any one of them.
The next night, the group gathered around the fire again as the Old Man told a bawdy story of the Great Rabbit and trickster, Waabooz, who was so horny that even a long string of she-rabbits could not staunch his lust.
“Waabooz spied a she-bear nuzzling at berries in the forest and said, ‘At last I will be fulfilled!’ He mounted the bear and had his way with her, pounding hard on her flanks.” Pausing, the Old Man asked several youths to pantomime the randy sport Waabooz made of the bear, which the boys were happy to oblige, producing a mix of groans and laughter from those gathered around the lodge fire.
“Waabooz had great endurance and his lustful ways went on for some time,” the Old Man said after the boys had finished their antics. “All this time, the she-bear did not know he was there, but felt a tickling from behind. Unable to turn and see the bunny riding her nikidin, she sat down heavily and scratched her bottom on the earth, pounding Waabooz straight inside her! Now, only Waabooz’s tail gave any indication he was stuck inside the bear, for it protruded from Makwa’s nikidin, snowy white against her black fur. All that summer, Makwa wandered among her kin with the tail of Waabooz waving furiously out her hindquarters as the rabbit tried signaling for someone to pull him out. Alas! It was not to be.
“The other bears asked Makwa why she had grown a rabbit tail, and why she waved it so furiously. To this, she had no answer, but could not deny that there was a full feeling in her belly. ‘I think I may be with cubs,’ she said after much thought.
“Makwa decided to sleep on it, and when the first snows started to fall, she made her den in a circle of snow. All this time, Waabooz had become very hungry, but even more so, he was very horny, for he was the most prolific of rabbits, and longed for the nikidin of his own kind. That spring, Makwa rose from her den and grunted hello to the sun. Then, a wonderful thing happened: she gave birth to a giant rabbit that was half bear with sharp claws, black fur, and long ears, yet with a snowy white tail. And Makwa’s new son would eat nothing but greens!
“So,” the Old Man said, making a point with his pipe stem, “if you are ever in the forest and come across a bear with tall rabbit ears and a white tail, beware. It may not want to eat you, but it may want something else.”
After the laughter died down, Misko raised his hand to speak. Tales of transformation and monsters always made him think of his own time when he had been lost in the forest prior to encountering Ashagi.
“Father, tell me what you think of this,” Misko said. He told of passing by the old woman in the tree long ago, who lingered there as a gray shade with her bones and burial clothes scattered beneath her. “I crept past her with my head low, too frightened to look into her eyes,” he recalled. “Then it was as if she followed me through the forest.”
“Oh, you were wise not to gaze back on her, for clearly she was a ghost,” the Old Man nodded, sucking at his pipe. “She was che-bi-ug, a spirit watching and waiting for those who killed her, but she might just as well have taken you if she was from the enemy’s people. Then, you would be sitting in the tree as her replacement and she would have gone down the road of souls. She must have been of the Anishinaabek, but you were wise indeed not to catch her eyes!”
“There was another thing, Father,” Misko said. “I found shelter in the hollow of a tree that night and a dark thing came looking for me.
I could not see it in the darkness, but I could feel it lingering where I was hidden. It sniffed for me before moving on. It was a great darkness, as big as the lodge we sit in now.”
“Yes, but perhaps it was only the size of a squirrel.”
“No! It was as if it were a large thing, floating above the ground.” Misko’s voice dropped low. “I thought it might be Maji-Manito, the devil.”
At this, several in the lodge gave wary cries and made signs of protection.
The Old Man clucked at him. “Maji-Manito has better things to do than dally with a youth in the forest. Did you hear the cracking of trees, or the rustle of leaves? Did you see its eyes glowing red?”
“Father, no, but I swear there was something there. A monster, perhaps. A great darkness passing by.”
The Old Man paused, choosing his words with care. “Let me tell you something about monsters, it is something only the priests of the Mide-wi-win know. Do you think that Mishi-zhigaag really exists? A giant skunk that kills with its spray and eats men alive? Have you ever seen such a thing, or known anyone who was eaten by him?”
To this all in the circle looked uncertain, for they had often heard tales of Mishi-zhigaag and other weird creatures of the underworld. All had heard tales of their battles against Manabozho, the thunderbirds, and other heroes of the Ojibwe.
“Yes!” the Old Man exclaimed. “Yes! Mishi-zhigaag and all the monsters that walk the forest and swim in the lakes are real! But they cannot touch you. They cannot hurt you unless you let them, because they live only within your own heart. Fear is the spirit that dwells within you. When it comes, you must push it down, push it down, and continue to push it down. Fear is the thing you see when you are afraid in the night or when you are alone in the forest. Anything you can imagine is a living thing, but brother, it lives only within you, eating you from the inside out if you let it.”
“But what of Misshipeshu, Uncle?” an old woman asked, speaking of the water panther. “He took my husband to the bottom of the lake.”
“Misshipeshu is a force of creation, like a blizzard,” the Old Man said. “We think of him as a serpent with horns and the head of a lynx who drags men underwater because that is how our fear sees him. Our fear makes Misshipeshu even more frightening than he really is. Misshipeshu is only the wind on the lake when it grows angry. So,” he paused and turned back to Misko, “the thing that came upon you in the forest, the darkness passing by, it was real, but it was not real. It was the darkness in your own heart taking shape in the night. A wise man knows tales of monsters make for good stories around the winter fire because they teach us to be careful.”
“And what of demons, Father? Are they also only our fears?” Misko asked.
“Oh no, demons are real,” the Old Man said as a crackling of embers drifted up to join the stars above the lodge. “But they are mostly just evil men.”
Over the next few evenings, the Old Man told of the Puk-wudgies, the little people who lived in the forest, plaguing the Anishinaabek with their mischievous deeds. He told of Nibiianaabe, the fish people who have the heads of men and women, but the bodies of a perch. He spoke of how Kitchi Ojiig, the Great Fisher, had become the largest constellation in the sky.
But one night, more than a moon later, he returned to the subject of demons.
“Do you still wish to hear how I got this?” he asked, raising his right hand, where half of two fingers had been removed.
It was a colder night than usual and Ashagi’s lodge was filled to bursting with eighteen members of the band snuggling against one another for warmth. Each knew his or her place by the fire, with the oldest given the warmest spots up front and the youths sitting in a row behind them, heavily wrapped in furs. All nodded, yes, Father, yes, Uncle, for the Old Man was one and the same to them.
“I am not a warrior, but the life of a trader can be even more dangerous,” he began. “My fingers were taken by the Haudenosaunee, and it is only by a miracle of Kitchi Manito and my training among the Mide that they did not take my hair and skin as well.”
The Old Man described how he had been traveling with a party of the Wendat, paddling through the islands of their country far to the southeast of Mishi Mackinakong. Everyone knew the Wendat and the Haudenosaunee were enemies unto the death of the world itself and had been at war for more lifetimes than anyone could count. And though the Haudenosaunee were a confederation of five tribes that stretched almost to the great salt water, the Wendat were even more numerous. “Both tribes are bewitched by war, far more than the Dakotas,” he continued. “For long ago, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat killed off most of the game in their lands and took up farming. Their fields of maize are as vast as the forest itself. Yet, because they can no longer prove themselves as hunters, they long all the more to prove themselves as warriors. Thus, they are constantly fighting their neighbors.
“Still, we felt secure in our travels—until a war party of the Haudenosaunee seized us as we lay sleeping on an island. They took six of us far to the south, to the longhouses of the Haudenosaunee, a journey from which few return. At first, my brothers were treated kindly; they were led to believe their captives intended to adopt them. They were taken into the arms of families who had lost a brother or a son, just as we sometimes adopt those of the enemy. But this was only to raise their hearts with hope of surviving, and for the Haudenosaunee to savor the treachery they planned,” the Old Man said, his voice sounding more like a threatening beast than an old storyteller. “It is their custom to be kind and loving to those they pretend to adopt in order to hurt them all the more when they betray them.” He paused for a long time, staring into the flickering flames in the center of the lodge.
“What happened?” a young boy asked finally.
“Oh, to tell it would keep you awake tonight with bad dreams,” the Old Man shrugged, waving it away.
“I will bear it.”
The Old Man looked at the boy’s father, who nodded. “He must learn.”
With a long sigh, the Old Man began. “First their hamstrings were severed with knives, and cords were threaded through the tendons of their ankles so that they could not escape. Ah, but when they saw my old club foot they backed away in fear of it, for this thing, which I long thought to be the curse of my life proved to be the saving gift of Kitchi Manito himself. By signs I indicated that a demon lived in my twisted foot and woe unto anyone who disturbed it. They had seen how difficult it was for me to keep up on our journey, so they had no fear of me escaping.
“Two moons went by before my brothers among the Wendat learned of their fate,” he began rocking in his seat in agitation. “They were brought to a great longhouse at the center of town, which was filled with their enemies at either side. Then, the women and children of the Haudenosaunee gathered their flaming brands and began hacking and poking the captives who sang their death songs in defiance. To their credit, my brothers took it as their due, for they would have been just as cruel if the Haudenosaunee had been in their power.”
All grew silent in the lodge as the Old Man’s words settled over them, with only the crackle of the fire speaking its approval.
“But this was just the beginning. The Wendat and the Haudenosaunee are masters of caressing their captives with fire, and have practiced on each other for many lifetimes. The Haudenosaunee sacrifice their enemies to Aireskoi, their god of war. So, at times they would allow the Wendat to recover from their wounds and let them drink, cooing kind words into their ears. They were careful not to kill them before the sun rose, for the longer they lived in agony, the greater the sacrifice in the eyes of Aireskoi.
“And oh, brothers, it was hot and dark in there, even with the flames, and the air was thick with screams and smoke,” the Old Man swayed sideways back and forth in remembrance. “I watched from my corner with a cord tied around my neck, thinking it would soon be my turn! One of my brothers kicked at the coals beneath his feet, hoping to set the longhouse on fire, and lo, it seemed that too might be my fate.”
Here, the Old Man shuddered in remembrance. “Ah, perhaps it should have been,” he rocked on.
“Towards dawn, the women and children were cleared away and the warriors of the Haudenosaunee began the heavy work, doing unspeakable things that I will not tell, for my stomach will not bear it. Yet, still the Wendat sang and protested that they wanted more of the fire. It was a test of their bravery, you see. And a man who cries under torture in this life is the slave of his tormenter in the next world. At dawn came the last of it, and they were released to the kindness of death with a cap of flaming coals.”
“Did they die bravely, Frandfather?” the young boy asked.
“Bravely? Oh yes, as brave as any man could under such torment.”
“And you, Father, why did they spare you?” Misko asked.
The Old Man lifted his eyes with a grim smile, raising his right hand with its severed digits.
“Oh, they planned to kill me, too,” he said, “But I protested that I was a trader and had never lifted a hand to the Haudenosaunee. At first, they could not understand me, nor I them, for they speak a different language than that of the Anishinaabek. So as is their custom with all male prisoners, the first thing they did was to cut off my bow string fingers.
“One of their priests took a clam shell that had been sharped to a fine edge and severed the tip of my pointing finger,” he continued. “Then, for sport, they brought forward an idiot of their town and instructed him to bite off the joint of my middle finger.
“Fuck, how it hurt! But I knew there were worse things to come, so I cried out in a loud voice and made signs that I was no warrior and pointed to my moccasins, the puckered design of the Ojibwe.
Windigo Moon Page 29