Thursday, November 22, 2001
MANIFEST DESTINY
It has been a couple of months since my last story. I had family emergencies… accidents, hospitals, travelling….
Today I will briefly talk about an old drunken man. He was my relative and he drank a lot. He would be sober and he took care of himself very good. He drank, like many people, when he falls off the wagon, he fell for days and sometimes weeks.
He would not be a very good person to listen and take advice from. Many people are told not to listen to those old drunks.
Of course, being me, I did not listen to those words of caution. I talked to many, many drunks. I talked to drunks and they had many good things to say.
The medicine men and women that I go and talked to and who I gave my tobacco and offerings were labelled as drunks. Still I listened to those old drunks. They had good things to say.
A lot of those old drunks were gifted from the spirits. The Creator had special purpose for them. They had powers and they were loved by our Creator / Kishay Monitou just as any other person.
It is during these days that it is wrong to be a drunk. We are told to disregard their words. They have no revelations to tell.
Of course, I still listened to those old drunks. I used to attend naming ceremonies and drink a bottle of whiskey with the medicine man. If you did not want to drink, you just touched the bottle and pass it by. The ceremony continues.
The medicine man still has powers, even though, he is a drunk. He still talks to that spirit and they still talk to him. My own ‘sober’ people have made a very successful movement to have these drunk medicine men and women, bad mouthed and many people turn away from them.
Of course, I continue to honor and respect any and all medicine man and woman. Who am to judge a ‘sacred holy person’? I would not do that, that spirit may get mad at me and decide not help me for snubbing a helper from that spirit world.
I went to shake tents with the old drunks, most of my ceremonies, growing up, was with a medicine man or woman who took the whiskey as an offering.
One old man, a drunk medicine man, my relative…. We took a white lady, well, actually a distant relative, who found her Indian blood coming from the Lake of the Woods area, she was Anishinabe. She wanted to find her roots. Her itty bitty drops of Anishinabe blood from my home called her back home. The old man took us for a boat ride. He tells us many things about the lake. I am amazed at his stories.
One island we went to, we found bones sticking out from a eroding shoreline. It was our relatives from a couple of generations back. He pointed out the little moccasins and clothes still intact from that old grave. The woman wanted to see her grandmothers grave. I think she saw more than she liked.
The old drunk, is my friend and teacher. He takes us to another island. We are walking around. He tells us of the last Sioux battle on Lake of the Woods. He tells us the Sioux war party was coming from the Warroad River and up the shoreline towards the Rainy River and up to where my relatives lived. The pioneers homes were being raided along the shoreline. The Ojibway/ Anishinabe, my relatives, had gotten word that they were coming. He was almost in tears as he talked to us on that shoreline.
We walked into the bushes and forest. He tells us to be very careful, to look on the ground and reminds me never to step on the grave. I remember the old rules, so I look for the graves he talks about.
We are told never to step on any grave. It is disrespectful to the dead. We are told if you step on a grave, you will have a problem. If you step on the leg of the grave, you will have a leg problem. If you step on the head of a grave, you will have a head problem. If you step on the body of the grave, you will have a problem with your body. We are told never to step on a grave.
It looks like a regular island with trees. Further in the bush we went. There they were. Graves. We were in a very large burial grounds. I stood in shock at the amount of graves in front of me. Full grown trees in the middle of the holes in the ground. Everywhere, we must watch our step.
He walks us to this grave. It was a huge grave. I can only guess from memory that it was 20-30 feet by 20-30 feet. It was a huge shallow depression. It had a very old tree growing in the middle.
He tells us the Sioux had come and the Anishinabe got ready for an ambush. There was a battle between the islands, they came through that channel and they got killed. He says the one Sioux was spared so he can go home and tell his people what happens to them when they come to fight the Ojibway.
He turns to us and asks “Why would an Ojibway bury a Sioux?”
In those days, the Sioux and Ojibway were constantly at war. Raiding war parties were common on both sides. Many people died.
It is not this way anymore. We are no longer at war. We live in peace.
He looks at the graves and tells another story.
The British and American people gave the Anishinabe people gifts of blankets. The Anishinabe was so happy to receive these gifts of warmth and love. They were used by many women and children in many wigwams and tipis.
The people started to get very sick. The Anishinabe started to die in large numbers. They did not know, until it was to late, the blankets had a sickness deliberately put on those blankets.
Small pox raged through out North and South America back then. The Anishinabe had been tricked. The Anishinabe died by the hundreds and thousands, possibly even millions.
It was deliberate. We were in the way.
The only defence my Anishinabe relatives had was to spread out on the islands of Lake of the Woods. The sick ones were told to go the island were the other sick ones were. Most never left that island. The sick buried the dead to keep busy. That big grave was a mass grave, the old man tells me. There were to many people dead and not enough people to make the graves. They made a big grave.
My people had been visited by terrorism in those early days. We have been terrorized since 1492, the day Christopher Columbus landed here.
My people had been visited by germ warfare hundreds of years ago. It is not a new thing, it is not a modern day problem. Germ warfare has been here for a long time.
These atrocities have gone unnoticed. No person has ever stood in front of a judge or jury for this mass murder. In most places, the word ‘genocide’ would fit the situation.
Where is the justice in this crime against a race? Is it any wonder why it is hard for me, as Anishinabe, to trust a government not belonging to Anishinabe? The path we walk with the white man has left my people dead.
It is still happening. My people suffered horrible deaths from Tubercleosis and now Diabetes, Aids is fast approaching. No matter what the medical profession says, it is not an accident. The path my people walk with the white man has left my people dead. This is all I see during our relationship to this day.
Why do my people have to die? We did nothing wrong. We never called a war. We stayed where the Creator had put us. Every race on this planet was given a place to live by the Creator. We still live where we were given. Some chose to go to another races’ chosen land and do their best to take it from them. By doing so, they throw away what the Creator has given them. They push away the gifts from the Creator.
It is sad.
Manifest Destiny is a belief. It is a belief that God gave the white man certain promises and powers over the earth and everything in it.
This is not a belief shared by any other race.
Why are my people judged under this manifest destiny? I can understand the belief, done to themselves. It should not be forced on to other races. It is not right.
It is an abuse of sacred power from the Creator and some call him God.
Someone connected will show up and set things straight.
The old man tells us the Anishinabe regret the ambush of the Sioux war party. They later found out the Sioux were coming in peace to ask the Ojibway to come to the Battle of the Little Big Horn. The battle of General Custer.
He tells me, the Ojibway have never killed another Sioux in battle again.
Stop and listen to the old drunks. Give them tobacco. Talk to them. Feed them sometimes. They are forgotten people and they tell truth. They will be very happy to have some one listen.
Stop Manifest Destiny.