Our Story: Aboriginal Voices on Canada's Past (13 page)

Next evening Pau-eehnse asked, “I'm curious. What are these dreams, these visions that you talk about? Why are they so important?”

The storyteller explained, going over ordinary dreams that most people have, some people more frequently than others. These had meaning. He said that the Houdenassaunee saw dreams as “the unfulfilled desires of the spirit.”

“Dreams,” he went on, “are meetings of the spirits of the living and the spirits of our ancestors in the World of Dream. The spirits of dreamers may even meet manitous and other spirits of the living in that stage of existence.” The storyteller explained that some men could conjure up spirits and summon them to the presence of the world of men and women. When the storyteller had finished going over the “Shaking of the Earth” rite, he went over the ordinary dream that men and women indulge in, “the dream of a better life.” To illustrate this point he related the story of two young friends who, seeing the crimson hills in the horizon, were led to believe that the land in the distance was much more beautiful than their surroundings. They left their village to make their home in the crimson hills. Each evening, after walking the entire day, the two friends were no nearer to the crimson hills than they had been the previous day. The land of the crimson hills was always on the horizon, as distant as before. Years later the boys, now men, returned to their village. They had gone around the world. Their home and their land had been the land of crimson earlier that day.

The storyteller told another story, a story of four young men who dreamed of a better life for their people, who were cold, hungry, destitute, as if they had been forsaken by their Maker.

“The friends set out seeking a land where there was food aplenty and fair weather, and where there was no illness and the people were happy.
They went on following the path of the sun. They came to a great river over which they were ferried by a riverman. Well beyond the river they came to the lodge of a bedridden woman. They looked after her until she recovered. When the friends were ready to resume their journey, the old woman told them to go back home to their people. She knew what they were seeking. And she would give them what their kindness deserved, medicine for their people. To each of the young men the old woman gave a small packet, which they were not to open and take until they returned to their village. They followed her advice, and taking their medicine was the first act the young men performed when they got home. But nothing happened, nothing changed during their lifetime. Their people were as poor as before, and the young men felt that they had been betrayed by the old woman. Only after they died did their graves yield the gifts that changed the lives of their people. The graves yielded evergreens, birchbark, flint, and tobacco that changed the lot of people who had once been cold, hungry, and sickly.”

“At home,” Pau-eehnse remarked, “we could never indulge in such dreams. My father and my mother were serfs. A serf I would be, and to die in servitude was my destiny. That is not a dream; it was the reality. I dream that I remain here, never to go back. But I do wish that I could see my parents.”

Nebaunaubae nodded. “I don't want to go back. I wish that our people had what we have here.”

During that storytelling season the chief and his people were absorbed by the master-slave relationship that Pau-eehnse and Nebaunaubae had described. They found it hard to believe that in a country as civilized and Christian as France, one man and his family owned all the land, and that his friends owned men and women and made them work, and that men, holy men, quarrelled about their beliefs and even killed those who differed with them. None could dream of a better life, except after death.

On the Wampum Belt was a fleet of ships. With these figures as his cue, the storyteller resumed his narrative.

“It was not long, no more than ten years since Parisé and Lebrun had been adopted by the Odauwau, that, unknown to them, what Daebaudjimoot had foretold was coming to pass. Shipload after shipload of bearded White men and white-complexioned women came to the Land of the Great Turtle. Most came because of a dream. They dreamed of a land where they could practise their beliefs without persecution; they dreamed of land, of a better life.”

Next on the Wampum Belt were two stakes with the totems upside-down, the sign of death.

“The Indians in the interior heard rumours of the influx of aliens in the east and reports that the aliens were squatting on the lands of the People of the Dawn, as the Anishinaubae called anyone who lived east of them. Nebaunaubae heard these rumours and, fearful of capture by his countrymen, moved further inland to Nipissing with his wife, five sons, two daughters, and twenty-five grandchildren. There he died in his seventy-fifth year. Pau-eehnse also moved inland, to Lake Simcoe, with his family of six boys, brown- and grey-eyed, light-complexioned youngsters. By the time he passed away, there were eighteen grandchildren. In addition to grandchildren, they left behind them stories of their heritage that their descendants kept.”

Abeedaussimoh highlighted soldiers firing their guns at warriors. There were bodies on the ground.

Now the aliens were moving inland. They were moving in on the People of the Dawn's lands, massacring the people who defended their lands and their freedoms. These aliens had no sense of right or wrong. They had no respect for the People of the Dawn or their rights or their lives.

And so it went. Chiefs complained, “When the White people came here, they were few and weak. All they wanted, they said, was a little space. Our ancestors gave them space, fed them, and gave them clothing. Soon they became many and strong. They wanted more land, more space. Before long our people were crowded off their ancestral homes and penned in enclosures.”

Abeedaussimoh paused and looked up. “I am done,” he said. “I have told you what our Wampum Belt has recorded of our people in the Lake
Simcoe area up to this time and what fates await our people in the future.”

There were shouts of “How! How! How!” (comparable to “Hear! Hear!”) throughout the assembly as Abeedaussimoh rolled up the Wampum Belt before sitting down.

Aissance, the chief, held up his hand for quiet and attention. The crowd settled down. “We will now hear from Wauwunoosh, Tecumseh's courier.”

Wauwunoosh, lithe, lean, tall, took his place beside Aissance, who drew back to sit with the other chiefs.

“Neekaumisseedoog, N'dawaemaudoog!” the
mazhinawae
began. “I am Wauwunoosh, Pottawotomi, Tecumseh's courier and brother in arms. I come to you from Tecumseh with greetings and his apologies for not being able to come to deliver his own message. But just as he was about to come away, couriers from his own people living in southern Ohio came to him with word that the Long Knives were encroaching upon their lands. As he was leaving, Tecumseh asked me to come to you, to ask you to join our cause in Ohio and to keep the Long Knives on the east side of the Ohio River … Otherwise the Shawnee, Miami, and Illiniwuk, and the Ottawa, Pottawotomi, Chippewa, and Maumee who make up the Anishinaubae peoples will suffer the same fate as our brothers in the east. Tecumseh asks, Where are the Pequot now? Where are the Narragansetts? The Passamaquoddy? The Massachusetts? The Mohicans? Once great nations, they are now but remnants of a once proud people, without land, without home, disdained, unwelcome in the villages and towns of the White people. How their fortunes have changed.

“When the White people first came to these lands, they were few and weak; though they knew a great deal, they knew next to nothing of the land, how to hunt, what to eat, what to wear. They told the Indians that they were looking for goods that would obtain for them a better life at home. Where they came from, they were slaves with masters. Masters made them work and took part of their harvest, leaving them with less than met their needs, so that they were ever hungry and often sick.

“There were deer and wild boars and pheasants in the forests, but they belonged to the King. For a man to kill one of them to feed his starving family was a grave offence. If a man were caught killing one of the King's animals, he could be put away in prison or in a grave. The animals in the forests were better off than were humans. These itinerants told the Indians that the King owned their bodies and their labours and that preachers owned their prayers, beliefs and souls.

“The Indians felt sorry for these hapless itinerants. They gave them some land, showed them how to hunt and grow corn and potatoes, and how to store meat and berries without salting. The itinerants took up land and many of the ways and attitudes of the Indians. Their numbers grew, and as their numbers increased they took up more land by fighting and killing the Indians to whom the Great Mystery had given the land. Now it is the Long Knives who own land, come and go as they please, and take their places by the side of other men and women as our people are accustomed to do. The White people have now what the Indians had. It is now the Indians who have no land, nowhere to go; they look up to army officers and governors and listen to preachers to guide them along the right Path of Life. This is the lot that the Indians of the east coast have come into.

“Unless we, the Shawnee, Kickapoo, Miami, Sauk, Illiniwak, Anishinaubae, Menominee, Winnibego, and all the nations to the south stand up to the Long Knives, we will all suffer the same fate as did our brother Indians along the east coast. Tecumseh wants you to know that the Shawnee will not give up a foot of their land that the Long Knives have demanded. They will not suffer the fate that the Pequots, the Narragansetts, and the other Indians went through. They are going to fight it.

“We, the Pottawotomi-Anishinaubae of Lower Michigan, are going to stand with Tecumseh and the Shawnee. We are asking you to join with us in the Niagara region, there to meet the Long Knives with bullets, arrows, clubs, and courage. We, all of us, must unite as one people if we are to repel the invader and to keep our lands and our way of life.”

“How! How! How!” the warriors cried out, then rose to their feet and uttered war whoops. Mingled with the hoots were shouts of defiance. “We will not back down! Blood! Death! Wounds! Drive them out. Send them back to where they came from! The war dance, the war post!”

That night the warriors performed the Dance of War. Next day they were off with Wauwunoosh, leaving behind apprehensive parents, wives, and children.

In Niagara they joined other warriors to fight by the side of a ragtag collection of conscripts to defend Upper Canada against the Long Knives. Without the Indians the defenders would have lost and Upper Canada would have been seized by the Long Knives. But, in the main, it was the Indian warriors who stemmed the Long Knives, and if General Isaac Brock had listened to Tecumseh and the other war chiefs, the defenders would have inflicted an even more decisive blow. Unable to break the Indian resistance, the Long Knives fell back.

Not long after the Battle of Queenston Heights, a courier from the St. Clair River region brought word to Tecumseh that the Long Knives had crossed the St. Clair River and were believed to be making their way toward the small town of London. Tecumseh and his war chiefs made straight for London. Learning that the invaders were still camped well downstream on the banks of the Thames River, Tecumseh and his chiefs prepared a trap. Some days later the invaders walked into the trap. The battle was fierce, both sides suffered heavy losses, but the greatest loss to the Indians was the death of Tecumseh. The invaders turned tail and went back to their country. The Indians won and they lost. Though they drove the Long Knives back to their own country and saved the fledgling nation from falling into the control of the United States, victory wasn't enough to fulfill their own dreams of keeping their lands and their way of life.

Within a few years the colonial government directing Canada's affairs turned on the Indians, took their lands, and herded them on to reserves, and they were no longer free to come and go as they were once accustomed to do, for they no longer had anywhere to go. They now had
Indian agents as masters. Missionaries came among them to tell them what was right and what was not. They were now no better off than the Pequots or the Narragansetts. In fighting for the White man's freedom, the Indians lost theirs.

The old Anishinaubae prophecy was fulfilled.

After the Battles of Queenston Heights and the Thames, these events might have been commemorated on the Wampum Belt, but the belt was either lost or hidden and is now forgotten. Few Anishinaubae people remember their history, and they rely upon European historians to remind them of what happened.

But the fate of the Indians was commemorated in story. A storyteller dreamed of a mighty struggle between a snake and a man. And this is the tale that he told.

Our people's lot is exemplified in a story that grew out of their desperation. A man out hunting one day heard a cry of distress in the distance. There he went. When he came at last to the place where the anguished calls came from, the hunter found a monstrous serpent entangled in the underbrush.

The moment the snake saw the man, he pleaded, “My friend, set me free. Have pity on me.”

“No! You might turn on me!” the man explained as he refused.

“My friend! What kind of creature do you think I am?” The snake sounded hurt. “Why think so ill of me? Do you not think that I ought to be grateful for having my life spared and that I would do everything to do you a good turn for having saved my life?”

“Yes!” the man agreed. “I suppose you ought to be, but I'm afraid.”

“Never! Never! Never!” the snake protested. “Never would I turn on you if you were to set me free. Think! Suppose you were caught fast as I am. And suppose someone came along and set you free. Would you turn on your friend?”

“No,” the man said.

“Then no more would I turn on you than you would turn on a person who befriended you,” the snake assured the hunter. “My friend! You
can set me free and give me life … or you can leave me here to die. If you leave me, you may as well kill me now!”