Our Story: Aboriginal Voices on Canada's Past (12 page)

Two weeks went by before the storyteller came to the prophecy that foretold the coming of bearded White men to this continent. It was this narrative that many older people wanted to hear, to see what their adopted White men would say and do. Then they could hear Pau-eehnse and Nebaunaubae talk about what life was really like in the old world.

And this is the story that he told. I've heard that it was Daebaudjimoot, our nation's first storyteller, who first told this story. The muses who foresaw the future put the story in his mind. He told his listeners: “One day bearded men with pale complexions will come to our land. They'll arrive on board great wooden canoes ten times longer than our longest canoes. At either end of these long canoes will stand tall timbers. From the limbs of these timbers will hang blankets for catching the wind that will whisk this great canoe along as quickly as a cloud. The White man's canoe will not need paddlers.

“In the beginning only a few ships will arrive, on board not many men. For this reason our people will not take them as threats. They'll accept the strangers' word that they are bound for another land lying well beyond the western horizon and that they will resume their journey once they have found a passage and replenished their provisions.

“However, in no time these White people will forget that they were
going to the Far East to find its riches for which they had sacrificed so much. They'll find something on our land far more precious than fine textiles, shiny stones, or spices. But wait. Wait for a few years. Then our ancestors will see ship after ship, bringing shiploads of men and women to our shores. They'll come like flocks of geese in their fall and spring migration flights. Flock after flock will arrive and set down in our lands. There will be no turning them back.

“Some of our children and grandchildren will stand up to these strangers, but when they do it will be too late, and their bows and arrows, war clubs, and medicines will be no match for the weapons of the White men, whose warriors will be armed with thundersticks that will sound like thunder as they unleash thunderbolts that kill. Their warriors will need do no more than point a thunderstick at another warrior, and that warrior will fall and die the moment the bolt strikes him.

“With weapons such as these, the White people will drive our people and our descendants from their homes and hunting grounds to lands where deer can scarce find room or food to eat, and where corn can barely take root. The White people will herd our people into pens as our kin, the People of the Weirs, channel trout and whitefish into cages. The White people will then take possession of the greater part of the lands and build immense villages upon them.

“Over the years the White people will prosper while our people will grow ever poorer. Though our people and our kin and other nations of our race may forsake our heritage and take up the ways of the White people, it won't do them much good. It will not be until our grandchildren and their descendants return to their values and traditions and beliefs that they will regain the strength and the heart to master new challenges … otherwise they will vanish as smoke vanishes into the sky.”

“Preposterous!” the listeners snorted.

“Is that true?” some listeners asked Pau-eehnse and Nebaunaubae.

“No. Our people are just looking for a passage that would serve as a shortcut to the Far East and save months of travel.”

“Why would you want to go to the Far East?” a questioner asked. “Why not stay at home with your families?”

“Our commander was commissioned by the first chief of our country to find a shorter way to the Far East than by going south. If our commander found a way, he and those of his crew would receive a reward …that would make life easier for us.”

“What is a reward, and what would you have done with it?”

Pau-eehnse and Nebaunaubae had difficulty explaining what reward and money were; the listeners had equal difficulty understanding what the terms meant.

“What would ‘reward'… ‘money' have done for you?” the questioner asked again.

“I could have moved to a city and learned a trade and had a better life,” Pau-eehnse explained.

“Why'd you want a better life? Wasn't your life at home good? happy? … Are you happy now?”

“Yes,” Pau-eehnse rejoined quickly. “Since living here with you I've been happy. I have everything that I never had in my home, everything that I could never have.”

“Tell us what your life was like in France.”

“I was born in the country,” Pau-eehnse began, “the son of a serf working the land for my master. We were peasants, poor people.” Pau-eehnse went on to describe how the dwelling that was his home was a hovel compared with the homes of the well-off. “Like other serfs, my father worked the land and looked after his master's flocks and did other work as required by the master. Work, work, work. Yet for all his work my father could never provide enough for us. Always we were short of something, especially food and clothing; we were cold, sick … miserable. My parents never went anywhere. The master of the manor would not allow his serfs—his slaves, really—to leave the land. They were rooted to the land as the tree is planted in the earth and cannot move. Most of the people in our country were serfs, chattels that belonged to the land that belonged to a master. Our masters were of the upper class,
the rest of us belonged to the lower class, worthless. You, my friends,” Pau-eehnse said to his listeners, “are lucky. You don't know how lucky you are. You can come and go as you please. You don't have masters to tell you what to do, what not to do. You are your own masters. You are free.”

“How then did your masters become masters?” another listener wanted to know.

“I don't know,” Pau-eehnse said with a shake of his head.

“I'm not sure,” Nebaunaubae broke in, “but I heard a priest say that God gave all power to the King and mastery over all the land and all living creatures dwelling upon it. The King then subdivided his kingdom into several provinces over which he placed members of his families and relatives to govern on his behalf.”

“Not many masters, then?”

“No, but they are very powerful, almost as powerful as the King. They live like kings in palaces where they eat fine meals, drink fine wines, sleep in soft beds, wear fine bright clothes, dance to fine music. These men and women are free.

“They look down on the rest of us as backward and unworthy, while we must look up to them as our superiors. We're not allowed to speak to them unless they speak to us first or give us permission to say something. And we must bow, genuflect, kiss the hands of our masters, and lick their boots if they command us to do that.”

Turning to the chief and looking at each of his listeners in turn, Nebaunaubae continued, “You are fortunate. You talk to your chief as if you were of the same rank. You walk, work, and eat with your chief. You go to him as he comes to you. You argue with him as if he were no better than anyone else. You don't bow down to him or kiss his hand. He doesn't command you to do this or forbid you from doing that. No one is greater, no one lesser. You're all equal. My countrymen would envy you. You are—we are—fortunate.”

“Yes, we are fortunate,” the chief agreed. “I cannot imagine any man or woman of our nation bowing or taking orders from me or another
man or woman.” Then he lapsed into silence, contemplating what he'd just heard.

“Chief!” Nebaunaubae spoke to the chief. “For you and your people, who owns the land?”

“It belongs to Kizhae-Manitou. Whatever the Master of Life has created belongs to the Master. The Master put us on the land that we live on. The Master gave it not to one but to all, including the birds, the animals, and the insects.

“All beings created were born with a right to a place upon the bosom of Earth Mother, to a share in her bounty. Only by having a place somewhere can creatures fulfill their duties to the earth, to plants, to one another, and to humankind. Without birds, animals, insects, and fish, humans would not long survive.

“When a person is born he is entitled to a place on the land and a share in the produce of the earth, and when that person is ready to settle down, he may select any parcel of land that is vacant for his own use for as long as he lives, or until he abandons it. He must choose a parcel that is empty. This land will belong to him and, if he is married, to his wife and his family. He can then say
‘ae-indauyaun,'
my home; his family will say
‘ae indauyaung,'
our home. The man's kin and neighbours will say
‘w'ae-indaut,'
his home, his dwelling place, in recognition that the dwelling and the land that the building stands on belongs to that man and his family. Women have the same rights as do men. This is our custom, the way we do things. But the land belongs to all the people. For as long as a person occupies a parcel of land, it is his, but the moment that he abandons it and moves to another place, the land reverts to the people.

“Birds and animals have the same need for a place that is their own, and they also have a right to the harvest of the earth.”

“That's the way it should be,” Pau-eehnse broke in, “but in our country the serfs work for the master. At harvest time the master takes a serf's produce, as much as he thinks he will need. After him comes the priest to take his portion. Always the serf is left with less than will meet his own needs. You don't have a similar practice.”

“The chief can get his own. We're not supposed to look after him; he's supposed to look after us,” a listener added.

The next figure on the sash was that of a man in black robes. It reminded the storyteller of Nana'b'oozoos first vision quest and how Nana'b'oozoo had not gone through with it. The story piqued Nebaunaubae's interest in his adoptive peoples beliefs. “In my country,” he began, “we don't have vision quests, we don't smoke pipes, we don't offer tobacco, we don't drum or chant or have fetishes such as you have. These practices would be regarded as pagan. When our leader Cartier came over here the second time, he brought a priest. The priest was shocked and he felt sorry for the poor Indians. He said, ‘Those poor savage pagans, they don't have churches, priests, or a holy book to read. They don't know about God and, not knowing God, will never get to heaven. Instead they'll all go to limbo or to the everlasting fires of hell.'”

“What's a church? What's a priest? What's a holy book? What's prayer? What's baptism? What's contrition?” the listeners asked.

Nebaunaubae explained.

“No, we don't have any of those things,” the chief said ruefully. “All we have is Mother Earth. She shows us birth, growth, life, death, and rebirth. She teaches us that life and being come from a seed that breaks its casement and grows and gives life, then dies, and its seed continues the cycle. Mother Earth shows us in her mountains, valleys, forests, meadows, lakes, and rivers that there is a Master of Life. She tells us through her other children, the eagle, deer, butterfly, whitefish, what we ought to do and what we ought not to do as we follow the Path of Life. We watch and we listen. The earth is our book.

“It's also our church. Every part is ‘holy,' made so by the act of creation. Wherever we may be, we talk to the Great Mystery.”

“How do you know what to say?” Nebaunaubae wanted to know.

“We know. We just know. Our heart and, on occasion, our mind will tell us what to say. Only you know what you want and need; only you know what to say; no one else does. And so you talk to the Great Mystery or to one of your ancestors or to one of the manitous in your own words.”

“Do you ever quarrel about your beliefs?” Nebaunaubae asked.

“No, we don't quarrel about prayers and beliefs. Prayers are between a person and the Great Mystery or one of the manitous; they are personal and confidential. Same thing with beliefs. We do have different understandings, but it is the Great Mystery who has given us these different understandings. For who is to say that one person has a better understanding and another less? Will the Great Mystery prefer the person to whom He has given more talent to understand and neglect the one to whom He has given less?” After a moment's reflection, he turned to Nebaunaubae. “Why do you ask? How do your people talk to the Great Mystery?”

Nebaunaubae told the listeners that God sent his only son down to the Holy Land to save mankind by teaching it the right way to live, and that the Holy Land people crucified Him for this teaching. “Why?” the audience wanted to know. “Didn't God do anything to save His son, to punish His killers?”

“Later Jesus Christs teachings were written down in a book,” Nebaunaubae continued. “Right from the start men quarrelled about God's teachings. To put an end to these disputes a priesthood of wise and holy men learned in the hidden meanings of the Holy Book was set up. Only these men were competent to interpret the teachings of Christ and to guide the people along the path of righteousness. These wise and holy men built churches to which people were required to go once a week to hear the word of God. Learning and ever more learning didn't put a stop to the disputes over the word of God. The wise and holy men disagreed. Even laymen drew different meanings from the Holy Book. The men who differed from the teachings of the Roman Catholic church founded their own religions and built their own churches. For starting their own religions, these men and women provoked the wrath of the Catholic church fathers who, along with the government, persecuted and killed the Protestant Huguenots.

“France wasn't the only country that wouldn't put up with different beliefs. In England, the model of tolerance and enlightenment—the English church—persecuted the Catholics.

“We heard our priest say that missionaries would reap a rich harvest among the Indians.”

The chief harrumphed, “And they'll sow seeds of squabbling, adding more fuel to the fire. As if we haven't already enough to quarrel about.”