Our Story: Aboriginal Voices on Canada's Past

by Tantoo Cardinal

  “I have looked for my son all morning …”

  “You are looking for your children with thoughts that make your hearts grow smaller!” says another grandfather.

  “We are all linked to one another and each of us must be responsible for everyone else. Like our sons and daughters on the battlefield, we, the Elders, no longer sleep nor dream. The world is drunk on blood and our souls are drowned in sadness,” moan the grandmothers.

  “I have heard nothing from my granddaughter for months … She and her friends enlisted in the army to take care of the wounded and console the dying … Sometimes I see her running through the palpable darkness of the battlefield,” says the eldest of all the grandmothers.

  “In the olden days, our people had a secret power to comfort their children’s souls and keep off impending danger,” says a grandfather, holding his breast as if an invisible arrow had pierced him to the heart.

  “We must leave it up to those who watch over us, according to the way of our tradition,” the Elders chant, bonding themselves to one another. “If we do not …”

  “If we do not?” The two fathers, armed with guns, ask in a single troubled voice.

  When there is silence, it is Kateri’s grandmother who answers: “If we do not, then we would rather that this very old world come to an end and that everything return to nothingness.”

  The band of Elders, united in a great circle, nod their heads as they listen to the old woman’s answer, for she has been coming closer to the world of the Spirits for a very long time.

  She continues her words: “My brothers and sisters, I have had a vision. You will certainly be amazed to hear me speak of vision in these times when the world is strangely and so rapidly darkened by so many dying in fear and bitterness. But listen to me speak of this vision—see the Great Spirit in our children.”

  “If you see with a pure and humble heart, this is a great vision,” maintains another of the grandfathers, an old soldier of the First World War who left an arm and a leg on the battlefield in a blood-filled rut.

  “Our children, our young people,” Kateri’s grandmother goes on, “with their actions, their language, and their absences are protesting against the darkness, against the foulness, against death.”

  She pronounces these last words while examining Jérémie’s father down to the depths of his being … It must make his head swim so that he comes to lay his gun at the feet of one of the grandmothers … Having done that, he then asks her and all those gathered there to hear him and counsel him.

  “By what evil spirit, by what demon, am I possessed?” asks Jérémie’s father.

  “Everyone, at least once in his life, comes in contact with a demon, an evil spirit in human form,” says Kateri’s father.

  “But under what circumstances did you meet him, my son?” ask the grandmothers.

  “When my wife was alive, she and I often used to go picking wild berries … Last summer, on the anniversary of her death, I went back to where we used to go. Just before noon, when the sun in the sky said that it was time to make lunch for my son, I turned back. Suddenly, I sensed a presence. Up ahead, by the edge of the path, a man was sitting motionless upon a large boulder. To get back home, I had to pass in front of him … To go around him would have meant a loss of face … A terrible foreboding swept over me as I went forward … But he did not appear threatening and bore no distinguishing marks. The closer I came, the more a blank horror seized me … When he turned his head to watch me approaching with his eyes like dark chasms, I saw that his gaze came from death itself …I passed him by, avoiding looking at him. I heard his voice hissing, ‘I will have you, go on. I will have you.’ As I heard this voice, horrible visions cast themselves on me and made me throw my hands in the air in my despair. I was a prisoner, I belonged to this evil spirit, to these visions of horror … I fell to the ground, unconscious, all my strength spent. When I opened my eyes, the sun was setting and the man, the evil spirit, had disappeared …”

  “And what of the stone on which he sat?” a grandmother wants to know.

  “Pfft …Gone up in smoke, just like him. Since that day, I have been in pain as though I’d been hit by the cries and howls of the dead. I spend my time cursing life, this bitch of a life, and that damn dog that my son prefers to his father …”

  “When you curse, you are not doing your job as a father,” the grandfathers chant as they close the circle around the two men again.

  “To curse is to give up on everything,” chant the grandmothers in their turn. “We are intended to dispense blessings, to kiss our children’s hair and foreheads and cheeks. To embrace each and every one of our days on this earth.”

  “A father’s lips, a mother’s lips, are softer than the finest cloth,” Kateri’s grandmother chants.

  “My wife says that we never say enough to our children or enough about them,” Kateri’s father murmurs as he places his gun on the snow, at his mother’s feet.

  “My life has been full of curses,” moans Jérémie’s father. “My son has turned from his father … He does not want my suffering,” he moans even louder. “He is afraid!”

  “Children, my son, are not afraid of suffering, not of the kind of suffering that is shared by all and is not lost. They are with us in this sort of suffering. But the suffering that you express, it is sterile suffering because you throw it back onto others. Your suffering,” says Kateri’s grandmother, looking at him with those eyes that induce dizziness, “that suffering that you bear inside you is a sterile and hellish suffering, a suffering that demands that you be ready for anything, even murder, to put an end to it.”

  “My son can’t know anything about that … It’s a secret … my secret,” Jérémie’s father answers, with a cracked laugh like a crow.

  “Children, young people, play with their fathers’ secrets the way the fathers play with the ammunition for their guns,” the grandmothers chant, in their voices the light breeze of a secret dove.

  Kateri’s father is shaking Jérémie’s father.

  “My brother, give your son the gift of a living father who has triumphed over despair and his demons. Only by remaining alive can one come to the end of his life! Come with us, my wife and me, and look for our children …”

  “Our people have walked for many years along the Trail of Tears,” says a grandfather, raising his arms toward the sky. “Our lives have become lives like dead branches that, despite everything, creak under the tread of our sons and daughters who with wild eyes march across the battlefields that reach farther than rivers. At night, when I am sleeping and my thoughts take a rest from the material world and I approach the Spirit, I hear their moans. Their souls are in danger! We must gather all our strength and prepare a great ritual. The sun will travel more swiftly today as it is the Solstice …”

  Kateri’s father and Jérémie’s father stand and object: “First we must find our children!”

  “This very night, our children, our young people, will celebrate the Solstice in a secret place,” says Kateri’s grandmother. “Little Anaië confided that to me.”

  At day’s end, all is ready in the clearing. The children, the young people, have piled up more than enough branches and small logs for a great bonfire that night. Seated on old stumps, clasping one another tightly, they wait for David, who is late … But here he is, and he is not alone: someone is walking behind him, his hand resting on David’s shoulder …

  “It is Brother Léon!” Kateri exclaims joyously.

  “Look at that sky!” David cries. “It is the Archangel Gabriel spreading his evening wings. His wings are broad enough to mount to the sky—with one, he fashions the deep crimson of dusk, with the other, the rosy wreath of dawn. Brother Léon taught me that.”

  Rapt, enchanted, the children, the young people, behold the faintly crimson light of this one moment, and the blossoming Moon beholds it too. At last Tobie lights the fire, which crackles, speaks up, while the smoke, perfumed with the incense of pines and fir tree
s, rises toward the stars. With the help of the blaze, the atmosphere of trust between Brother Léon and the children, the young people, has increased. Each one there decides to reveal to the rest something he treasures. Tobie displays thick buffalo-hide gloves. “For the Lakotas, the bison is the animal that gives the greatest part of itself so that the people may live. When they need food, the bison offers its flesh, and when they need shelter, the bison provides its hide to make garments and tepees.” When he left his father’s house, Jérémie took with him his treasure—two rattles, one made of insect cocoons containing grains of sand, the other a turtle shell with small pebbles. As for David, he pulls six little buckskin pouches filled with birdseed from his backpack, giving one to each in turn.

  “In anticipation of the next time we walk on the Blessing Path,” he says, his voice filled with emotion.

  Kateri shows her empty hands … She has brought nothing with her. Little Anaië, with a peculiar smile, decides to skip her turn: “Brother Léon, you go first,” she says.

  From under his cape, he brings forth an icon of the Theotokos, or the Mother of God, painted on a wooden board small enough that he can hold it in his large hand.

  “I brought this for you,” he says, giving the icon to Kateri. “She was painted in Russia, where I was born.”

  By the light of the flames, Kateri can be seen to blush.

  “She is very beautiful. Thank you,” she says simply.

  “And you, little Anaië,” Brother Léon says seriously, his voice lightly accented. “Have you a surprise in store for us?”

  Anaië’s treasure is wrapped in a beaded buckskin. She unwraps something that looks like a bow from which a piece of string dangles. There is also a long arrow.

  “This is my father’s musical bow,” she says. “He taught me how to play it.”

  Grasping the dangling string between her teeth, she draws it tight and then strikes it with the arrow, causing it to vibrate. With her mouth acting as a resonating chamber, she produces sounds as old as the world itself. Standing erect, she plays and plays. The creature Moon in the sky lights the creature Earth, and the children, the young people, listen only to this music that has the power to make the whole world dance! Jérémie shakes his rattles and clear waves, solemn waves, pulse through the palpable expanse of night. They dance, circling the fire. As he leaps into the air, Tobie thinks he sees his mother, as beautiful as a young bride, smiling radiantly at him. Jérémie sees his father welcoming him with open arms … Kateri sees her father and her mother both sending her a thousand kisses.

  Hidden in the forest at the edge of the clearing, the Elders witness the children, the young people, dancing. Tobie’s mother is there—she is wrapped up in furs to keep her from the cold and comfortably tucked up in a sleigh that Kateri’s father and Jérémie’s father have taken turns to draw to this spot. As they promised Kateri’s grandmother, the people of the reserve remain perfectly still, without making the slightest movement to disturb the air—on this night, only the Moon of the Long Snows and the children, the young people, are allowed to move. Watching their dance, Tobie’s mother thinks deep inside herself, “It is as if the suns are dancing.”

  At the instant of the Solstice, Kateri is absolutely still. Quivering like a winged creature clad in a golden beam of light, she begins to sing the dirge “Death of a Warrior.” The musical bow and the rattles accompany her as she intones the sad lamentation. All those present think they hear very clearly the beat of the drums along with the plainsong of the dead souls coming from the heart of the earth. When Kateri finishes her song, another voice arises … Appearing as a white shape, it descends from the Moon.

  The grandmothers think, “It is the magnificent Daughter of Heaven.”

  The grandfathers think, “It is White Bison Woman, who taught us the seven sacred ceremonies.”

  Kateri’s grandmother thinks, “It is the Great White Star, come from the Land of the Dead, to be a guide to our daughters and our sons.”

  Brother Léon thinks, “It is Gabriel, the Angel of the Moon, the guardian of human and animal mothers and new-borns, who is beginning his task of tenderness and love. How the blessings enlarge and spread!”

  When this singer of a hundred names raises her ethereal voice, a matchless silence reigns. Hearing this solestial voice, surrounded by her divine song, every voice is silent and the demons seem to retreat into their caves.

  “At last, those who have died on the field of battle are walking on the Blessing Path,” say the Elders, who do not expect to see more winters.

  Withdrawing in silence, they return to the reserve.

  At dawn, under a pink sky and a pale moon, the children, the young people, part, each setting off along the path while feeding the birds. It will be a beautiful day.

  Neither Tobies nor Anaië’s father ever returned. Like so many other Natives, they were buried in the lovely Canadian military cemeteries somewhere in Europe.

  “Kahgee pohn noten took,” the Crees say. This means “The battle is over.”

  *Words spoken at the conclusion of every Lakota tobacco ceremony.

  THOMAS KING

  Coyote and the Enemy Aliens

  IMAGE CREDIT: SEATTLE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND INDUSTRY

  CONTRIBUTOR’S NOTE

  IT’S NEVER A GOOD IDEA to ask writers why they wrote something. We’re such great liars. When anyone asks me that question, I have three answers I generally haul out.

  One, I did it for the money.

  Two, I wrote it because the topic moved me.

  And three (my favourite), I wrote it to change the world.

  It’s not that these are bullshit answers, though, in part, they are. It’s just that I have absolutely no interest in trying to figure out my reasons. I’m not even sure why I write, though I can’t imagine giving it up. I suspect it was never my choice in the first place, which makes the question of why I write and what I write sound deliciously mysterious. Perhaps even mystical.

  And, of course, that’s bullshit, too.

  But there is a moment in the creative process (in my creative process, at least) when something falls into my lap.

  As it were.

  Sometimes it’s a phrase that I can use for a title. Sometimes it’s a story I’ve heard. Sometimes it’s an injustice (God knows there are enough of those). Sometimes it’s a joke. Sometimes it’s a recipe. Sometimes it’s a personal demon that’s gotten loose (I hate it when that happens). Sometimes its little more than a sad thought or a vague gesture.

  Who cares? I don’t. I’m just happy that whatever comes along comes my way.

  I know the story of the Japanese internment in Canada. I know it as most Canadians know it.

  In pieces.

  From a distance.

  But whenever I hear the story, I think about Indians, for the treatment the Canadian government afforded Japanese people during the Second World War is strikingly similar to the treatment that the Canadian government has always afforded Native people, and whenever I hear either of these stories, a strange thing happens.

  I think of the other.

  I’m not suggesting that Native people have suffered the way the Japanese suffered or that the Japanese suffered the way Native people have. I’m simply suggesting that hatred and greed produce much the same sort of results, no matter who we practise on.

  So never ask a writer why he wrote something.

  You’ve been warned.

  Coyote and the Enemy Aliens

  You know, everyone likes a good story. Yes, that’s true. My friend Napioa comes by my place. My good place. My good place by the river. Sometimes that Napioa comes by my good place and says, Tell us a good story. So I do. Sometimes I tell those good stories from the Indian time. And sometimes I tell those good stories from the European time. Grown-up stories. Baby stories.

  Sometimes I take a nap.

  Sometimes I tell Coyote stories. Boy, you got to be careful with those Coyote stories. When I tell those Coyote stories, you got to
stay awake. You got to keep those toes under that chair. I can tell you that.

  You better do that now. Those toes. No, later is no good.

  OK, so I’m going to tell a Coyote story. Maybe you heard that story before. Maybe not.

  Coyote was going west. That’s how I like to start that story. Coyote story. Coyote was going west, and when he gets to my place, he stops. My good place. By the river.

  That was in the European time. In 1940. Maybe it was 1944. No, it was 1942.

  Coyote comes to my house in 1941. Hello, says that Coyote. Maybe you have some tea for me. Maybe you have some food for me. Maybe you have a newspaper for me to read.

  Sure, I says. I have all those things.

  So Coyote drinks my tea. And that one eats my food. And that one reads my newspaper.

  Hooray, says that Coyote. I have found a job in the newspaper.

  Maybe you’re wondering who would hire Coyote.

  I thought so.

  OK. I’ll ask.

  Who would hire Coyote. I says.

  The Whitemen, says Coyote. The Whitemen are looking for a Coyote.

  Oh boy. Coyote and the Whitemen. That’s pretty scary.

  It’s over on that coast, says Coyote. In that west. That’s where my job is.

  Good, I says. Then I won’t have to move.

  But I am so hungry, says Coyote. I don’t know if I can get to that coast, unless I get something good to eat.

  OK, I says, I will feed you so you can get to that coast.

  And I don’t have a good shirt, says Coyote. I really need a good shirt, so the Whitemen will see that I’m a good worker.

  OK, I says, I will give you my good shirt.

  Oh, oh, oh, says Coyote, how will I get there? It’s a very long ways, and my feet are quite sensitive.

  You still got those toes tucked under that chair? You better keep your hands in your pocket too. Just in case Coyote notices you sitting there. And don’t make any noise. If that Coyote sees that somebody is listening to him, that one will never leave.