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RITES OF CONQUEST
The History and Culture of Michigan's Native Americans

In the month of Manitogizis (January), when the evenings are cold and Indian people gathered around their fires, it was safe to talk of the spirits. Now, the old ones, skilled in myth and legend, could tell their tales, stories of the time when the earth was new and when the trickster hero Nanabojo roamed in high adventure creating plants, animals, and the geography of our modern landscape. These were tales well told, spiced with the irony and humor that can only come from the honing of a thousand retellings.

As the children and their parents listened with fascination, they learned that the world and the creatures around them were not always like they are; indeed, they are not even now like they seem. What is puzzling, they learn, may be apparent and what seems so real may truly be quite mysterious.

As the old people told it, the first world was a world of dreams and mist. It was not clear what was plant and what was animal, and humans, too, had no definite place. In this first world lived two people, an old woman and her daughter.

Each day the daughter went to search for food. She was only able to find a single kind of berry and, as a result, had to travel a great deal. One day a spirit saw her and took a liking to her; it was the wind. Although the air was hot and still, the girl felt a sudden gust of wind. The wind swirled around her only to leave her as suddenly as it had appeared.

Shortly thereafter, the old woman had strange feelings about her daughter and asked her if she had seen anyone while she was out berrying. "No" said the girl, "I'm always by myself." Yet the old woman knew that something was strange. Sure enough, the girl discovered that she was pregnant. Only then did she remember the wind and told her mother. The old woman knew right away that the Sun was the father.

When the time came to give birth, the woman went to the forest where three children were born. The first was a normal baby boy. After this baby was born she held it in her arms. Then she heard a voice that said, "Put the baby on the ground." She didn't do it. After some time, the voice said, "You didn't want to do what I tell you. If you had put the baby down, it would have been able to walk. Now the baby won't walk for a year." This is why human babies, unlike animals, can't walk soon after they are born. This first baby was called Nanabojo.

Then another child was born. It didn't have human features, yet it looked like a human baby. This was the second brother. The third child, called Maskasaswabik, was then born. This baby was made of stone. The three boys grew up fast. After all, they were manidog or spirits.

The oldest son, Nanabojo, killed everything in sight, and although his mother told him repeatedly not to kill other creatures he persisted, even trying to kill powerful spirits. The two older brothers traveled far and wide exploring the world, but because the stone brother could not travel, they were obligated to return to camp each day.

One day, Nanabojo said to the second brother, "Do you think it would be all right if I killed our brother Maskasaswabik so we wouldn't have to return to the same place anymore?" His brother replied, "You're the one that's thinking of what you are going to do." When they returned to the camp, the stone brother (who was magically listening to every word) said to Nanabojo, "Why don't you do what you were talking about?" So Nanabojo borrowed an ax from the old woman and tried to kill the stone brother. He only dulled the ax. The stone brother said to Nanabojo, "You will never kill me unless you heat me red hot and then throw water on me." Nanabojo did just that and his brother Maskasaswabik cracked and died. Then the two remaining brothers were free to travel widely and they began to explore.

As they traveled, the second brother began to tire more and more easily and finally could not keep up with Nanabojo, so Nanabojo decided to leave him behind. He dug a hole in the earth and put his brother inside, carefully covering him with earth and marking the spot with a rock. Now Nanabojo was happy and could roam freely, but, in his enjoyment, he forgot to return for his brother. When he finally did return to look for him he couldn't find the hole. He did, however, see evidence that his brother's spirit had appeared and Nanabojo knew his brother was dead. When he knew that he felt alone and cried and cried. His brother heard him and told Nanabojo not to cry, but Nanabojo said, "What did you come back for? Why don't you return to the place where you were?" His brother replied, "I will make a road for the people to travel along when they die."

The second brother made the road to the spirit world, a road that led in one direction. Once people take this road they can never return. Once the second brother came to that place, he called back to Nanabojo and said, "I'll tell you what the Indians will call me-Nekajiwegizik." That name means 'someone who goes down behind the sky.' The second brother did not have a name until he named himself.

Now Nanabojo was alone. He'd killed his brothers. Since it was Nekajiwegizik who created a place for people to go after death, the third brother, Maskasaswabik, could not go to that place because the road did not exist when he died. It is for this reason that he is still on earth. At this time, Nanabojo had the bowl that he and his brother had shared. This is the reason Indians give someone who has lost a loved one a mourning dish, bepagwecinunk, 'something to take your mind off it.'

As he traveled on, Nanabojo befriended a wolf, who became his companion and of whom he became very fond. One night, the wolf did not return and Nanabojo discovered it had been drowned by underwater spirits who took the form of huge snakes. To take revenge, Nanabojo made a bow and succeeded in wounding two serpents. Later, masquerading as a woman doctor, Nanabojo entered the house of the serpents and pretended to perform a cure. Instead, he plunged the arrows in deeper, killing the spirit serpents. In revenge, the underwater creatures caused a huge flood to destroy the world. Nanabojo barely managed to save himself by climbing the highest pine tree on the highest hill. Even then his nose was just above the water.

As Nanabojo clung to the tree he noticed animals swimming in the water. "Brothers," he said, "could you go down and get some soil? If you do, I will make an earth for us to live on." The otter, a strong swimmer, said he would try, and dove for the bottom. He didn't make it to the bottom and floated back to the surface where he was revived by Nanabojo, who blew life back into the otter's body. Next, the beaver was determined to try, and he dived. The beaver stayed down a long time but soon his body, too, floated to the surface. Nanabojo blew life back into the beaver and asked him, "Did you see the bottom?" "Yes," said the beaver, "but I couldn't reach it." Next it was the little muskrat's turn. Since the otter and beaver had failed, it didn't seem to have a chance to succeed. Nanabojo waited a long time and at last the little muskrat's body floated up. The muskrat's paw was closed and when Nanabojo opened it, there were several grains of soil. He dried these in the sun and then threw them into the water where they became a beautiful island. Nanabojo added soil and the island grew into the earth.

It was on this new earth that the world of the Indians was formed. The manidogs created the four separate strata of the cosmos: the earth, underworld, sky, and sky vault. These domains were populated by the many spirits that gave Nanabojo what he needed to live on the earth and created for him the parents that became the original humans, the Anishnabeg.

A long series of legends details the marvelous travels of Nanabojo, who often appears as a mischievous and foolish being who through various misadventures produces the characteristics that we observe in the plants and animals around us. Not least of all, the legends account for similarities and differences among humans and form the rationale for proper social behavior.

The Birth of a Myth

It is true of Indian mythology that the distant past merges ultimately into the historical present. As events known from historical experience lose the dimension of time and place and as events surrender detail for essence, myths are born. These are different kinds of truth that the Ojibwa clearly recognize in distinguishing between daebaudjimowin, a chronicle known from personal experience, and auwaetchigum, truths that transcend history, that is, truths of parable and allegory.

In 1842 at La Pointe, Wisconsin, interpreter and Ojibwa historian William Warren recorded an argument between two venerable chiefs that illustrates the way history becomes legend. It seems that a disagreement arose between members of the Loon and Crane clans as to which would provide the hereditary chief at La Pointe. Loon clan chief Kitchi-wash-keenh, Great Buffalo, argued that the very numerous and prominent Loon clan had the right to represent the people of La Pointe. He was answered by the elder chief of the Crane clan, Tug-waug-aun-ay, who refers to the migration legend of the Ojibwa that was, in that day, a fundamental tenet of the Grand Medicine Society or the Midé-wi-win. This legend tells how the Ojibwa people appeared at the shores of the great salt sea in the east and how, over the generations, they moved continually westward to the Great Lakes.

Tug-waug-aun-ay made his argument using an allegory. According to Warren, he arose to reply to Kitchi-wash-keenh and began by pointing to the eastern sky: the Great Spirit once made a bird, and he sent it from the skies to make its abode on earth. The bird came, and when it reached halfway down, among the clouds, it sent forth a loud and far-sounding cry, which was heard by all who resided on the earth, and even by the spirits who make their abode within its bosom. When the bird reached within sight of the earth, it circled, looking for a resting place, till it lit on a hill overlooking Boweting (Sault Ste. Marie); here it chose its first resting place, pleased with the numerous whitefish that glanced and swam in the clear waters and sparkling foam of the rapids. Satisfied with its chosen seat, again the bird sent forth its loud but solitary cry; the No-kaig (bear clan), A-waus-e-wug (catfish), Ah-auh-wauh-ug (loon), and Mois-o-neeg (moose and martin clan) gathered at its call. A large town soon congregated and the bird, whom the Great Spirit sent, presided over all.

Once again it took flight and the bird flew slowly over the waters of Lake Superior. Pleased with the sand point of Shaug-ah-waum-ik-ong (Chequamegon Bay, Wisconsin), it circled over it, and viewed the numerous fish as they swam about in the clear depths of the Great Lake. It lit on Shaug-ah-waum-ik-ong, and from thence again it uttered its solitary cry. A voice came from the calm bosom of the lake in answer. The crane, pleased with the musical sound of the voice, again sent forth its cry, and the answering bird made its appearance in the wampum-breasted Ah-auh-wauh (loon). The bird spoke to it in a gentle tone, "Is it thou that gives answer to my cry?" The loon answered, "It is L" The crane then said to him, "Thy voice is music. It is melody. It sounds sweet to my ear. From henceforth I appoint thee to answer my voice in council." "Thus," continued the chief, "the loon became the first in council, but he who made him chief was Bus-in-ause (Echo-maker), or the crane. These are the words of my ancestors, who, from generation to generation, have repeated them into the ears of their children."

As Warren tells us, all the assembled Ojibwa understood the allegory perfectly well and, as they quietly listened, they gave their assent by whispering, "It is true, it is true."

The migration of the Ojibwa as told in the allegory of the flight of the crane has a telling visual counterpart in the nineteenth-century birch bark migration charts that have been preserved in various American and Canadian museums. Charts such as Red Sky's migration chart (now held by the Glenbow-Alberta Institute in Calgary) show the westward migration of the Ojibwa from the great salt sea in the east to Leech Lake in Minnesota. Assuming a historical migration of many, many generations, it would be logical to think that the makers of the charts, relying on the legends of the migration itself, would have more detailed knowledge of the more recent parts of the journey, that is, the western part. Indeed, referring to the left side of Red Sky's chart, we see Lake Superior clearly identifiable by the sand bar that even today separates the western end of the lake from Fond du Lac (Minnesota). On the eastern end of Lake Superior, the falls of the St. Marys River (Boweting) are recognizable.

Between Lake Superior and Leech Lake, one familiar with the old canoe routes can trace the Ojibwa migration up the St. Louis River to the east branch of the Savannah River, to Big Sandy Lake and then on to the Mississippi River, to the Leech River, and then to Leech Lake itself. The chart shows the route replete with portages, places sacred to the Ojibwa, and places guarded by dangerous serpents. As near as it can be determined, this route from Lake Superior to Leech Lake was developed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as the Pillager bands pushed westward, expelling the Lahota who formerly occupied this region.

As we might expect, the geographic detail of the migration journey from the salt sea to Lake Superior is shown in the vaguest geographic detail. Moving east of Sault Ste. Marie, we see Lake Huron and then a series of stylized rivers and portages that have been identified by chart owners as the French River, the Mattawa, Ottawa, Montreal, and the St. Lawrence rivers. The salt sea is represented by a shoreline where the first great town of the Ojibwa was established. It was here that the bear revealed the secrets and ritual of the Midé-wi-win to the Ojibwa people.

Through the migration legends, the use of symbolism and allegory, the distinction between daebaudjamowin and auwaetehigum as well as the visual representations of the migration charts, we see the process of historic truth being transformed into mythological truth. It is, perhaps, in this reality that we can best understand the actions of the Indian people of the upper Great Lakes during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries as well as some actions of their modern descendants.

Science and the Past

There is yet another and distinctly different way to know the origins of the native peoples of the upper Lakes. Origins not passed on in words but in material things produced by the minds and hands; objects that, as the truths of mythology, bear witness to the passing of generation upon generation of Indian people. The interpretation of these vestiges of the past falls to the domain of archaeologists, scientists learned and skilled in reading evidence from the ground. It is the archaeologist who, through the study of the villages, camps, burial places, quarries, and workshops of ancient people, sheds scientific light on origins and developing cultural traditions. As a science, archaeology is based upon objective observation and the formulation and testing of hypotheses through the use of newly acquired information. In this sense, archaeology is very distinct from mythology; it is not constructed on faith and belief, but upon healthy skepticism. Skepticism, it should be mentioned, does not stifle the excitement of discovery nor still the romance with which most archaeologists perceive their work.

Michigan, her neighboring states, and the province of Ontario, have, within their boundaries, thousands of archaeological sites. Each represents at least one episode in the historic occupation of the region. Each site was formed by people doing the things people do: cooking food, making tools, giving birth, warming themselves, telling stories, and dying. In performing many of these activities, people knowingly or unconsciously modified their environments. They left behind broken pots, lost or discarded stone artifacts, fireplaces, remains of meals, and many other telltale signs of their lifeway. These sites are the only "voice" of these ancient people and, unfortunately, they are being destroyed in unprecedented numbers as urban expansion, modern farming techniques, and other earthmoving construction obliterates these precious, nonrenewable resources of our common heritage.

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Excerpted from RITES OF CONQUEST by Charles E. Cleland
Copyright © 1992 by University of Michigan . Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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