Monday, July 2, 2001
GARDEN ISLAND
I live on Lake of the Woods. It is on the Ontario/Manitoba CANADA and Minnesota UNITES STATES borders. It is a very beautiful place. There are an estimated 16,000 islands on our lake. The water levels changes and the number of islands also changes.
We call our 'Lake of the Woods'... 'KAKABEKATOGAG' in the Ojibway/Anishinabe language. It is translated into 'Lake of the Sand Dunes'. All along the southern part of our lake it is all sand and gravel. Before the devastating construction of dams on the Rainy Lake and Lake of the Woods, Lake of the Woods were four separate lakes. If the trees and soil were to be removed it would look like a desert.
Sand is used in a few ceremonies. It is a very important part of Anishinabe history. This shall unfold in the very near future.
There are stories of the Ojibway using this sand for healing. Things are drawn using this sand and it heals people. I would say it is quite similar to what the Navajo and Hopi do in the American southwest. This is a very old practice and will make its come back. The Government of Canada has outlawed many of our ceremonies so many people had to go further into the forests to perform them. It was also not passed on to upcoming generations as it would have before the Indian Act. It will come back, I see this already.
My story today will focus on the islands. We have many islands and they are all different sizes and shapes. Some are bald rock outcroppings where thousands of pelicans, sea gulls, black commorants nest, some are large and full of trees. These can be very large islands with moose, bear, deer, racoon, lynx, bobcat, rabbit and many other four leggeds.
When you step on these islands, with white pines along the perimeter of the island, you have stepped on a special island. Looking from the water, they look like any island.
There is a difference on these islands, they got a history to tell you if you look carefully.
The island has very large white pines on it and it is filled with small trees or no trees at all in the center. Sometimes you will find a island with white pines on the edge and just thick weedy like plants in the middle.
You see, up until the very early 1900's my relatives and many other Anishinabe people in the area had gardens. We grew many things. We had mandamin (corn), squash, pumpkin, potatoe, hay fields and many other juicy tastey food. The islands were actually gardens. They fed many, many people from far away. We traded excess stuff to other tribes. We had food all year long. We made holes in the ground that acted as caches or refridgerators. Each family had a area, or group of islands to grow things on. No one can tell they were gardens, those travelling on the water, this was a defensive mechanism to prevent the ever invading Sioux from robbing the gardens. My family were also fisherman and fine hunters. We travelled by canoe made from the birch bark tree and horse and dogs on land. Everyone was happy.
It does not match with the white mans history books that we were running around naked in the bush with grunts and chatters for language, eh? I get so darn tired of Non-Indian propoganda and their biased views of our history.
We were economically self-sustaining people with a language, a culture, a history, a form of government, a warrior society/military, a spiritual way of life, family, community and national structures.
All of this life would be almost forgotten, as prophecy tells us. Then there will come a time when all things will revert back to that old way. The drums would be heard on many islands at the same time. Some people who have this knowledge will share this and others will learn.
In the late 1800's to early 1900's there came a law inside the Indian Act that made trade with Indians ILLEGAL. Anyone buying from an Indian was breaking this law and would be punished by the Government of Canada. This took its toll on my family and our way of life, our livelyhood.
It was even documented that the Indian crops were much larger than any other seen any where else in North America.
This form of economic destruction was common in many tribes. This would be called 'economic sanctions' if happened today.
My family had no one to sell to, so the farming was slowly abandoned. Some just left their farms and left the plants to grow wild on some islands. The Indians were forced onto the jail-like Indian Reserves, with trees as metal bars, the Indian Agent sitting close by with his law book and his power over the oppressed. Today, the Indian Agent is called the Indian Act Chief and Council, they got our own people to keep us down. Our people grab ahold of the governments laws and powers and we are now in a slow vicious cycle of self destruction.
I would like to acknowledge the Federal Department of Indian Affairs for destroying my people and our livelyhood. I would also ask the Creator to have pity on them for the same will happen to them, as our Ojibway prophecy states.
These laws are still here and the Federal Government and Department of Indian Affairs are steadily attempting to change this Act before anyone can see the damage they have done to my people. This is only used by certain groups, such as the Province of Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources, who just in the past couple of years, stunted our sales of fish my people caught. They approached our fish buyers and TOLD them not to buy any more fish from us.
Our government also prevents us from growing economically, we are forced to spend our money at non-indian towns, bye non-indian gas, alcohol and cigerette and practically everything we need to live. They have recently allowed my people to sell gas, and they still have restrictions on that. Some of the Indians have even tried selling cigerettes, only to be raided and the Government imposing tax cuts to lower their cigerette prices to destroy our very own attempts to re-build our economies.
This is to late though. The muzzles over our mouths for so long have only made us louder and louder. Our voice will be heard around the world, so fast they will not know what to do. We live in a 'civilized world' and yet, the most advanced countries on this earth is literally killing the poorest and weakest members that have become so dependant on these rich governments.
Our people have been kicked and stomped on. Our natural resources have been stolen. Our treaties have been ignored over and over again. They use Canadian justice system to find ways to weaken our treaties. They pass on 'the problem' to the provinces and they now hold the keys to our natural resources. The natural resources that is supposed to SHARED, use wise and profit wise is totally ignored. They are a smart people. As prophecy states, this will change. They will bond their grandchildren and grandchildrens grandchilren to the very same laws that were used to keep the various races, from around the globe, down. Destruction of economies, assimilation, genocide, slavery, oppression, the list goes on and on.
We signed a treaty with the Federal Government and they turned around and gave many of the power to their provinces and they, to the districts and the municipalities. We have been ganged up on on all fronts. The media is controlled so that the world is only shown a biased pro-canadian view of incidents inside our country.
I say this many times, to many people. My relatives signed a legal binding document called the Northwest Treaty (Treaty #3) in absolute good faith and that the Indian would continue living as he did and that the natural resources would be shared. All profits from the Governments use of the land would be divided to the Anishinabe in my area. After the Treaty was signed, the signatories soon died and Indian Affairs and the Indian Agents had their feasts and celebrations. After this time, most of the information discussed by the Anishinabe signatories went with them to the grave. Some still have this knowledge.
The government is supposed to give this land back if they break the Treaty. They have broken this Treaty and they are not forking over this Crown land. I strongly believe that we need a Anishinabe/Ojibway Liberation Movement to FREE the Anishinabe from Canadian and American rule, researching all worldly liberation organizations and taking thier knowledge and applying it to our conditions. But who will help us? We are too little, poor and weak to fight. As prophecied, this help will come from afar. They will see the Anishinabe suffer and will come to help us.
Some say this is another much larger society or group of countries here on earth or it is the star people that visit us regularly and hold my people as thier children. Time will unfold as it is meant ot unfold. Either way, there are tough times ahead for many oppresive cultures and good times for the oppressed.
Today, many of my people have been so displaced from their own culture, they are imprisoned in a fierce and deadly form of dependancy on the the Federal Goverment of Canada. They hold us by money strings that would make us totally collapse if they decided to take that money away.
The day is coming where my family and people will be returning to the islands and start their gardens once again.
Happy gardening!!!