As Long as the Rivers Flow (3 page)

It was not his fault he had never made it overseas to participate in the actual fighting. He had volunteered to go, but his superior officer had taken note of him, had liked him and had blocked all
efforts to ship him out, afraid he would not find anyone as competent to replace him. When the war ended, that same officer, who had joined the government department responsible for Indian Affairs when he was demobilized, remembered him and told him that his employer was hiring former military personnel to work as Indian agents running Indian reserves across the country.

“You probably don’t know anything about Indians, but that’s not a requirement,” he told him. “You don’t even need a high school education to get one of these jobs. Veterans are given preference and we’re looking for tough, well-disciplined managers to deal with childlike people who are still living a hand-to-mouth existence and need help to prepare them to join the modern world.

“Just get yourself the proper forms, fill them out and put me down as a reference. I’ll make sure you get taken on.”

The former sergeant jumped at the chance to move up in the world and become a federal public servant with its job security and guarantee of a good pension. And it wasn’t true that he didn’t know anything about Indians. He had met plenty of them living in hobo jungles and working in lumber camps and tobacco fields when he wandered the country in the 1930s.

In those days, he considered it unfair that Indians, even war veterans, were legally prohibited from buying beer, liquor and wine in government outlets and from drinking in beer parlours and bars like white Canadians. So when he had a little cash, he would sometimes do a little discreet bootlegging, buying a few bottles of cheap wine from a government liquor store to sell to his Indian acquaintances, at a good profit of course, to compensate himself for the time, effort and risk involved. Sometimes, to show that he was not prejudiced, he would even accept an invitation to have a little drink with them.

Once he had even spoken up for the Indians, even if none of them knew about it. Like everyone else on the base, he was vaguely
aware that Camp Ipperwash had been built on land seized from Indians at the beginning of the war. He had no problem with that. After all, everyone had to make sacrifices for the war effort, and Indians were having their lands taken from them all the time anyway. But when he caught some recruits using tombstones and crosses for target practice in the abandoned Native cemetery, he was furious.

“There may just be a bunch of dead Indians buried here,” he told them, “but how would you like if some strangers came along and shot up your family graves?”

After joining Indian Affairs, the new bureaucrat was pleased to discover that the hierarchical work culture of his workplace was similar to that of his beloved army. Only instead of drilling green soldiers on the parade grounds, he was ordering Indians around on their reserves. Like the recruits, the Indians could do nothing about it. They had few rights, not being allowed to vote in federal elections or even to keep their children at home to be educated. As an Indian agent, he had the authority to decide whether his charges could leave their reserves, own property, attend university, sell their livestock or even organize themselves politically. Although he sensed there was something indecent in that, he actually enjoyed lording it over so many people.

Now, as the plane landed, he looked forward to celebrating another Treaty Day. In the seats behind him were a Mountie decked out in a scarlet tunic sprinkled with badges, striped breeches and polished knee-high boots and spurs, and a clerk, who sat with one hand on a cash box.

After disembarking from the aircraft, the Indian agent shook hands with the chief and introduced his travelling companions. The chief formally presented the band councillors, and everyone moved to a table set up in front of the Hudson’s Bay store by the trader.

“How’s the wife and kids?” asked the Indian agent, trying to make small talk.

“They’re okay.”

“Someone told me the winter up here wasn’t too bad. How did your people make out? Get lots of fur?”

“Everyone’s done okay, I guess.”

The clerk bustled around opening his ledgers and checking the cash box as the Indian agent asked the chief if the water had been high in the spring, if the fishing was good, if the elders were receiving their old age pension cheques on time and if many babies had been born since his last visit. The chief, who had met the Indian agent many times on other Treaty Days and did not like him, continued to answer in monosyllables.

When all was ready, the two white officials sat down and the Mountie took up a position behind the table, standing at attention, when not swatting mosquitoes and black flies, and doing his best to lend an air of formality to the occasion. The people, dressed in their best store-bought clothes—calico dresses with colourful floral patterns for the women and plain white shirts and trousers and braces for the men—waited patiently as the clerk checked their names off a list and handed over their treaty money: four crisp, brand-new one-dollar bills to each member of the band.

Afterwards, the chief asked everyone to gather around, and as he did every year, officially welcomed the visitors to the community, speaking in Anishinaabemowin for the benefit of his people, with the trader translating his words into English for the delegation.

“I thank the people who have come such a long way to be with us today to celebrate the treaty signed by our grandfathers so many years ago. We are always happy to receive our treaty money. But the money is not the important thing. Having the opportunity to celebrate the treaty itself is what counts. We don’t want it ever to be
forgotten that our grandfathers were promised by the white man that the treaty would last for as long as the rivers flow, the sun shines and grass grows.

“The treaty, however, is being ignored. We are a patient people but the mining, lumber and pulp companies are taking minerals and wood off our traditional lands and we get nothing, not even jobs. You are our friend and we ask you to tell the big chief in Ottawa to help us.”

As the chief spoke, the Indian agent stood stiffly erect, his hands clasped behind his back, staring off into the distance as if he were back on the parade grounds listening to a report from one of his corporals. When the speech was finished and the translation rendered, he turned to the chief and gravely delivered his judgement.

“You know I tell it as it is and I don’t mince words. Of course I’ll pass your message up the chain of command, just like I’ve done with your other ones over the years, but I gotta tell you now, as your friend, that no one’s gonna listen. For one thing, you should read the fine print in this treaty before you start complaining. Maybe you’d see that you don’t have as many rights as you think you have.

“Another thing you gotta realize is that the world has moved on since your treaty was signed. Two world wars, the Great Depression, and the arrival of the motor car, airplanes, lots of things. Just this year, the government put a satellite up to explore the skies and paved the highway across Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

“And no one, not even way back here in the bush, can stand in the way of progress. Maybe you’ll find it hard to understand, but nobody in Ottawa believes in these old treaties any more, and the day is coming when there’ll be no more reserves, and you Indians will be just like the Italians, the Dutch and the Chinese—no better and no worse off than anyone else.”

As the people applauded without conviction, the chief handed each visitor gifts of deerskin moccasins with rabbit fur lining, beaded moosehide winter gloves with beaver pelt trim and birchbark needle boxes embroidered with porcupine quills and sweetgrass.

“My people would be honoured if you would stay and help us celebrate Treaty Day this evening,” said the chief. “I’d love to visit,” was his answer, “but I’m a busy man with many other reserves to visit and we just got time for a quick bite.”

The visitors, led by the chief, walked over to the big tent, ignored the
tripe de roche
and wolfed down generous helpings of fried pickerel, bannock and venison stew. After a few sips of hot tea, they hurried to their waiting aircraft, promising to spend more time with the community the next year.

The first evening, the people got together in the tent to eat, to drink endless mugs of tea and to talk and laugh, just as they did every year after the departure of the white people from Ottawa. When the feast was over and the dishes cleared away, everyone pitched in to remove the tables and make ready to dance and sing. Two men pulled out fiddles and began to play and step-dance to the rhythm of country music. Delighted men, women and children took to the floor, singing the words to the tunes, dancing jigs and forming themselves up into groups of eight to square-dance.

After the sun had set and it was dark, the people made their way to the beach to sit around a great campfire and listen to the old stories. Anxious not to miss a word, Martha worked her way through the crowd and found a spot at the feet of the elders who had pride of place on logs drawn up around the fire. She sat spellbound as the storytellers related the great myths of the Anishinabe people: how Muskrat created the world, how Frog brought the seasons into being, how Dog became the friend of man, how Thunderbird shook the
heavens, how Nanabush came to be the messenger of Gitche Manitou and played tricks on humans and animals, and much, much more.

The second night was reserved for a traditional celebration and the mood was solemn. The people stood silently in the tent after the feast as the chief pounded rhythmically on a water drum. Fashioned out of an empty metal nail keg, half filled with water and tightly covered with a water-soaked moosehide, it throbbed out hauntingly for miles across the lake, summoning the ancestors to come join the celebrations. Other drummers joined in, striking smaller drums with their hands and shaking rattles made from discarded Carnation milk cans filled with small stones. Someone called out that the spirits had arrived, and the people began to chant the old songs and to shuffle solemnly in single file around the inside of the tent.

Afterwards, around the campfire, an old man, entrusted with the evening’s storytelling, asked the children to sit on the ground in front of him, promising to tell them a few things they would never forget.

“Last night,” he said, after taking a seat, “you heard stories about Gitche Manitou, the Great Spirit, and his supporters and the good things they do for the Anishinabe people. Tonight, I’m going to tell you some things normally too awful for kids to hear. About monsters and bad things. Anyone who doesn’t want to listen should leave now.”

Of course, no one left, and the old man leaned forward and earnestly whispered to the children that an evil spirit, almost as powerful as Gitche Manitou, was at that moment hiding in the shadows disguised as a toad and secretly listening to what was being said.

“That spirit’s name is Madji Manitou,” he said, “and it has many wicked followers. The water serpent that chases away the fish and upsets the canoes of fishermen in storms and drowns them is one of them. It is the master of the bearwalkers, the witches who arrive in a ball of fire and take possession of the minds and bodies of people. Everyone is afraid of bearwalkers because they cast spells
on people they don’t like and make their hair and teeth fall out. They even cause sickness and death. They’re easy to recognize because they dress in black, are really old and are always in a bad mood.

“Madji Manitou is also the ruler over the Wendigo, the monster I am now going to tell you about tonight. And you better pay attention and not make me mad because maybe I’m a bearwalker. After all,” he said, as the children laughed nervously, “I’m an old man, I dress in black, I’m bad-tempered, especially to little kids, and I know all about Madji Manitou.

“The Wendigo,” he continued, “is a half-human, half-devil monster at least ten times the size of a man, with breath that reeks of rotten human flesh.

“You kids have all smelled animals who have been dead a long time in the bush or in the lake. Well, the Wendigo smells even worse. It stinks and it isn’t even dead! Its favourite food is fresh, living, human meat. During the spring thaw, human-hunting is really good. The snow is deep and wet and it’s hard for people to get around. The moose and deer can wait for the snow to melt, holed up in the swamps eating cedar branches. But the food supplies put away in the fall by the trappers are low by then and sometimes their families have nothing left to eat.”

The old man suddenly leaped to his feet and lunged at the children as if he were the Wendigo, gnashing his teeth, snarling and beating his chest. And as the children screamed in terror and ran off crying and stumbling over the rough terrain beyond the light of the campfire, he cried out, “Watch out for the toad! Watch out for the toad!”

Barely able to contain their laughter, the parents went to bring them back, telling them the old man was just pretending.

“Oh no I’m not,” he said, frowning and picking up a hemlock bough that he hurled into the fire, releasing a shower of sparks that
flew upwards like fireflies in the night sky and a cloud of smoke that left the people downwind choking and coughing.

“Just imagine the scene, kids,” he continued, addressing himself directly to the children whose frightened eyes reflected the flames. “Just imagine the scene,” he repeated, leaning forward again, his voice barely audible.

“The poor trapper is struggling through the snow. Each step is pure agony since the wet snow sticks to his snowshoes, and they become harder and harder to lift. His rifle and pack get heavier and heavier, and he becomes weaker and weaker, and soon he can barely move.

“All of a sudden, he smells something so horrible it can’t be described! He hears whistling and bellowing that shatter the winter silence and freeze his blood. The earth begins to shake under his feet.

“What’s this? It’s the Wendigo itself rushing at him, crashing through the bush, thumping the snow with its giant feet and hurling trees high up in the air.