WEB GRAFFITI ZINE Zine 21: First Nations ~ Week II Collated by William Hillman Assistant Professor ~ Faculty of Education ~ Brandon University

CONTENTS Native American Words of Wisdom David Westfall Photo Westfall/Castel Memoir 3:  Muskrats, Cold Weather, Canoe Journeys and a Church Bell Art Gallery Robert Castel Photo Westfall/Castel Memoir 5: The Mimikwisiwak and the Little People  of Granville Lake and Burntwood Lake Cartoon Reference Links

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NATIVE AMERICAN WORDS OF WISDOM

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"There are stories and stories.... There are the songs, also, that are taught.
Some are whimsical. Some are very intense. Some are documentary...
Everything I have known is through teachings,
by word of mouth, either by song or by legends."

Westfall/Castel English-Cree Dictionary and Memoirs of the Elders

David Westfall

Memoir 3
Muskrats, Cold Weather, Canoe Journeys and a Church Bell
Pukatawagan, January 12, 1998
 Interviewer: Doris Castel

    I was born on a bay, at a place called The Swirling Narrows
    (Opachuanau), near People’s Lake (South Indian Lake), on October 24, 1916. I
    don’t remember my early childhood, but when I was about ten years old I
    accompanied my grandmother to trap muskrats in the spring, just like long
    ago. Boy, there were lots of muskrats in that place. It was along the
    Missinippi River that flows here, you know, and we did not have to go far
    before we found muskrat burrows, where my grandmother had set a trap.
    We set up camp nearby, and whenever we detected a little stick moving,
    we knew we had caught a muskrat. It was the anchor stick that told us when a
    muskrat had been caught. Immediately, my grandmother would go and get the
    muskrat and hit it. Then we roasted and ate the muskrat, all the while
    watching to see if another one had been caught in a trap.

    That’s how we were brought up. We set nets, too. There were a lot of
    sturgeons, too, in the Missinippi. Anyone who set a net would catch a
    sturgeon right away. Nowadays, there are no sturgeon left, but back then,
    boy, they were plentiful. It was like today, when anyone sets a net, he
    catches fish. At that time, if anybody set a sturgeon net, he had caught four
    or five sturgeons by the next morning. That’s how abundant the sturgeons were
    long ago. And that’s how life was for the people then.

    I finally went to school when I was about ten years old, when the
    residential school at Sturgeon Landing opened up in 1926. I attended that
    school at Sturgeon Landing, eighty miles to the west. Back then, the Sturgeon
    River was really wild and isolated. It felt like uncharted territory when we
    first went to school there, but now a road leads there and anybody can drive
    in. It is so different now.

    After I finished school, I went trapping with my father. We trapped
    here at Old Man’s Bay, his favourite trapping spot. We went out into the
    bush, camping wherever we stopped, but we did not use a tent at all. We slept
    out in the open, and, boy was it cold! It was not like today, when if it is
    twenty-five below we think it’s cold. It was fifty or sixty below back then,
    and we slept on the open ground! Many people lived like that long ago. There
    are not many of us left today who experienced that, for example, Adam Castel,
    Emile Sinclair. There are only about three of us now who experienced that
    cold. And now, the younger generation does not want to believe how cold it
    was. They say that we are lying. But no, Pete Mitchell experienced it, too.
    He tells about the time he camped outdoors while working for the Department
    of Natural Resources. He used to sleep outdoors then. He said it was like
    somebody hitting the trees, which just split. It was so cold that the trees
    would split open, he said. That’s the way it was.

    Eventually, I started to trap on my own, but I used a tent and a small
    wood stove. Fortunately, I made a good living, although the times were hard.
    I used to stay outdoors all day, no matter how cold it was. I went to bed
    only when it got dark. I was comfortable there until close to dawn, when I
    felt the cold. When you lived like that, you just had to get up and eat, only
    first you had to thaw your food. Your food was always frozen until it was
    cooked. Only where you had set up camp did you eat something nice and warm.
    Imagine this! You travel out in the bush all day, and meanwhile all your food
    freezes up. When you want to eat, you thaw just enough to eat. It was a
    difficult life back then, when our generation was growing up.

    Now, old age has caught up with me and I receive social assistance, an
    old age pension. Now I think I am a “king,” especially when I think back to the
    hard times of long ago, when I was about thirty-five. I reflect on my past life
    and compare it with life today, and, boy, I think I am a king. How time changes
    lots of things, compared to the past. That’s all I have to say.

    Oh, one more thing! I’ll tell about my late grandfather Mathias Colomb.
    He came from somewhere over there to the south. He was not born around here
    in the north, but lived somewhere down south. In his time, those white people
    were pushing inland towards the north. They were always fighting each other,
    and the whites and Natives were not levelling with each other. That’s when my
    grandfather thought of coming up north. He used to travel by canoe. Maybe he
    paddled along from Winnipeg and then, eventually, to The Pas and Cumberland
    House, and then to Sturgeon River and Pelican Narrows. Then, maybe, he stayed
    for a while at Pelican Narrows, but he did not like it there. He thought of
    looking for a place where he would be able to make a good living. So, he
    paddled out from Pelican Narrows and travelled along what is now called Sandy
    Bay. He crossed Loon Lake and eventually came to Duck Lake, where he stayed
    for quite a while, to sightsee and check out the land. When he was satisfied,
    he thought, “I will continue my journey down the river.”

    Soon, he paddled into Pukatawagan, over here. He stayed here, looked
    around, and boy, was he pleased with these rivers, the four rivers that flow
    into one. And here, boy, they caught lots of fish. People used to fish here
    at the narrows. There was this church at the narrows. Today, a road connects
    to the other side, and that’s where they set their nets. Back then, boy, they
    caught a lot of fish. And that’s how Pukatawagan got its name, “fishing
    spot,” named after the narrows where they set their nets. The four rivers
    that are located here all have names, like the Pukatawagan River here, Leech
    River, and the Hanging-Upside-Down Place, and Between-the-Two-Rivers.
    Towards
    the Hanging-Upside-Down Place and, halfway to the Hanging-Upside-Down Place
    is Between-the-Two-Rivers, Chaschawaweyask. Then, after that time, my
    grandfather made camp at Pukatawagan.

    It was one hundred and thirty-one years ago, and that was when the
    settlement of Pukatawagan was established. And it was then that the Hudson’s
    Bay Company set up a trading post. They brought in food here. The people had
    to paddle from here with a canoe to The Pas to get provisions, the things
    they needed. They would go to The Pas to get flour, lard, sugar and tea. They
    paddled, maybe, four hundred miles. In June, the “egg-hatching month,” they
    would go out, and they would be back in July, the “flying-up month.” They
    travelled out again until September, the “rutting month.” Then they came
    back home. They travelled by canoe only twice a summer, and that was all they
    could manage. Those people of long ago were fit and agile. They had no
    difficulty paddling to The Pas twice a summer. If we were to paddle all the
    way to The Pas today, we would probably never make it back, we would
    probably… maybe we would freeze! The people today are so different from the
    way they were then. Back then, they ate only moose meat, fish, duck, berries;
    everything they ate came from the land. They ate these things, and that’s why
    they were so strong.

    I have one more thing to tell, but I don’t remember much. Oh, when we
    went to school at Sturgeon Landing, we travelled there from Pukatawagan for
    the first time in 1926. There were about ten of us when we first went out
    there to school, when it first opened up. All the children had to paddle. We
    paddled in, but we did not have an outboard motor then. There was no such
    thing. We just paddled, and at a portage everyone had to carry something
    over, the provisions and gear. And that’s how we travelled.
    Eventually, by the time I finished school, a train was running here at
    Sherridon, where a mine had opened up. That’s where the train stopped. One
    time, in 1931, after I had got out of school (for the year), I finally went
    on the train. It was the first time I had taken a train. Before the train
    started running, I had to paddle home every July, July first, when the school
    year ended. They gave us holidays, right? They would release us then, and if
    anyone had children attending school at Sturgeon Landing, the parents had to
    go and pick them up to take them home for the holidays. But the last time was
    quite different. (The school had not yet burned down.) The children just had
    to go by plane. In the fall, they were flown to school. They just had to go
    by airplane, and boy, we had a hard time at school the first time. Those
    children who flew were, boy, like kings. They only had to sit and look out
    the window. Now, I’m going too far, lying too much.

    When the first church was built here... Actually, there were four
    churches. I saw two of them, but the first two were before my time. One time,
    back in The Pas, you know, there was a church bell that was used to call
    people to service. Then, the priest wanted somebody to transport the bell to
    Pukatawagan. Four men went with two canoes to get it. They paddled two in a
    canoe, Julien Bighetty, an elder, Alex Dumas, another elder, my father, and
    my uncle Solomon Colomb. These were the men who went out and got the bell
    from The Pas. The paddled along by Cumberland House, and then Sturgeon River.
    Continuing their journey, they finally reached Kississing Lake, as we call
    it. They passed also by Cold River, as it was called. Boy, they travelled a
    long time, because there were many portages to carry the bell over. It was
    very heavy, they said. At the portages, they tied two sticks onto it and
    carried it at each end, by themselves, the four men. The last portage was
    Jack Pine Portage, a very long portage. They carried the bell over, stopping
    halfway. There, the elder Julien said, “Yes, we managed it, to bring in the
    bell. Boy, was it heavy! We should be happy,” he said. “And we made it,” said
    Alexander Dumas, “and.... but wait, man, I will ring the bell.” Boy, they
    stopped there a while at the portage just to ring the bell! That is how happy
    they were to bring in the bell for Pukatawagan. And that is how my father
    used to tell it. He would talk about it and laugh. Alexander Dumas is the one
    who rang the bell.

    Okay, now I’m sure that is all I want to tell, what I had in mind to
    tell about.

    [End of recording]

ART GALLERY

Westfall/Castel English-Cree Dictionary and Memoirs of the Elders

Robert Castel

Memoir 5
The Mimikwisiwak and the Little People
of Granville Lake and Burntwood Lake
Keno Linklater, 1936-
Pukatawagan, May 27, 1998
Interviewer: Beverly Linklater

    Beverly: Do you recall if your grandfathers ever told you stories about
    merpeople, the omîmîkwîsiwak, whether they existed or if they had ever
    seen them?

    Keno: Yes. I remember that. Yes, it was one of my grandfathers, my
    mother’s father to be precise. There is a so-called Mîmîkwîsi Rock in
    a place where people are living now [Granville Lake reserve]. It is
    just across the lake, just a short distance away.

    My grandfather used to tell me the story of an old man who always
    set his net there at the Mîmîkwîsi Rock. A lot of fish were caught in
    that spot. This is his story.

    One day, an old man set his net there. He checked his net every
    morning for three or four days, but there were never any fish in it.
    Finally, he lay in wait to see who was stealing his fish. He made his
    look-out in the bay behind a point of land near the Mîmîkwîsi Rock. He
    hid and waited there in a birch-bark canoe.

    Eventually, he heard talking. He could understand them because
    they were speaking our language, Cree. (“They talked Cree, like us,”
    said my grandfather.) And this is how he told the story: He sneaked up
    on them while they were in their canoe, but I don’t know what kind of
    canoe they were using.

    “So you are the ones who have been robbing me of my fish, eh?”
    The one who was steering the canoe turned around. Meanwhile, the other,
    the younger one, was lifting the net. Both of them were hanging their
    heads down. Now, the one who was steering said to his companion, “You
    are better looking. You lift up your head and talk to the old man.”
    (Those mîmîkwîsiwak don’t have noses, you know, and their chins are
    like a fish’s jaw. They have teeth, too, and their eyes look human. But
    from here on, he could not see clearly how they looked. Their clothes
    look like a fish’s skin, and their bodies really shine. They seem to
    glow or glisten.)

    Well, the younger one lifted up his head, looked at the old man
    and said, “It’s because we are hungry. Even though we have set our nets
    in the big lake, every time we check them there are no fish. And we see
    this old man, you, catching so many fish. We tried, over there, to show
    you this huge rock, such a beautiful one.”

    That rock is still there to this day, you know. I see it all the
    time. It was not always there, but suddenly dropped down from
    somewhere. It is hollowed out in spots, scooped out as with a big
    spoon. They made it, but I don’t know what kind of tools they used.
    There, beneath the water is where they lived. No, not in the water
    itself, but in a house like this one, the old man said. He told my
    grandfather that he was taken down under the water to see the home of
    the mîmîkwîsak. It was incredibly beautiful down there, where I assume
    they did their cooking because I saw firewood. I don’t know just how
    they made their living, though.

    And then there was another guy, Peter [Colomb], who told me a
    story, too. This one is from Burntwood Lake. There, too, is a place
    where the mîmîkwîsiwak used to live, and maybe they are still there
    today. Quite unexpectedly, he told me to go and see for myself. (He
    told me the story at the time I was working for the government.) “Just
    go and take pictures of it,” he told me. “You will see how obvious it
    is that they were there, those mîmîkwîsiwak.” And he told the same
    story, how the mîmîkwîsiwak have no noses, like fish. And their mouths
    and chins look like fish, too. They had teeth, I assume, because they
    ate all kinds of things. That’s what the old man said. He told me this
    story quite recently, in the 1960s.

    Now, back to Granville Lake! My grandfather said that still
    today, they are there, at Granville Lake’s Spirit Island. That’s where
    the mîmîkwîsiwak took refuge. People will say, “I don’t believe in that
    myself.” But if you point to it, even if the water is calm and crystal
    clear, not five minutes away there will suddenly be whitecaps and a
    strong wind. I believe it, too.

    One time when I was out fishing there in the 1950s—I was already
    married in the summer of ‘58—I was with my friend Sandy Patterson. We
    were not taking anything seriously. The water was perfectly calm when
    we came out across Granville Lake to that wide-open area in the middle
    of the lake. My friend stood up and pointed a finger at the very Spirit
    Island, saying, “Let’s see if it is true, what they say.” “Don’t do it,
    my friend, or we will perish.” We got close to the shore just in time,
    but we capsized there. Our fish were floating all over the place. Our
    nets, too, and we lost them all. They just drifted away, and we had to
    swim to shore. Our boat sank there, about twenty feet from shore.
    That’s when I came to believe, too.

    It’s the same here at Highrock’s Little Spirit Island. When
    somebody points a finger at it, the wind comes up right away. I believe
    that. I believe it, so nobody should be caught unawares or be misled
    into thinking there’s nothing to the story. When you hear it, it is a
    lesson for the future.

    If you are travelling to this Granville Lake Spirit Island, you
    are not to point a finger at it. You are not to play around with it, or
    you could drown. The same is true of the island at Highrock. It is
    true. Even if you have a fast outboard motor, the wind would still have
    time to catch you. That’s the mîmîkwîsiw. The omîmîkwîsiwak still exist
    today.

    It’s true, and also, you know, long ago these little people, or
    dwarfs, as they were called, existed, too. Well, people really used to
    see them long ago, just as my grandfather used to tell me about them,
    my father’s father, you know. He said, “I believe in them, my grandson,
    those little people. We did not see them, but they lived among us.” And
    there are also some of them over there at Granville Lake. In fact, my
    younger sister, Harriet Baker, has seen them them out there in the
    lake, as well as other people who lived there, such as my brother-inlaw
    August Merasty, and my younger sister Marie Merasty.

    They were there once, going across there in the middle of the
    night, to visit somebody. They were in their younger years at the time.
    It was the first time over there, when my brother-in-law, Louis Baker,
    had just married her.

    They probably went over there for a party, and he was perhaps
    getting a bit high. He came home alone in the night. As he was walking
    in the place where there used to be a fish packing house, he said, “All
    of a sudden somebody grabbed me on my back. Boy, did I scream! I was
    not drunk, though. I grabbed, in vain, a person that I felt behind me.
    I don’t know what he did to me. Then, another one grabbed me by the
    legs. I grabbed the one on my back and threw him. Finally, one of them
    let go and then both of them fled. I watched them run away.”

    They were not big, those little people. Even today, the little
    people live among us, but I don’t think anybody ever sees them. My
    grandfather said, “The little people still live among us today, but we
    don’t know it.” They still exist. It is true, and so we should take it
    as a warning for the future. A person should watch out and not make
    light of it, in order to have a good life. All kinds of things can
    happen if we do not take it seriously.

    People used to be blessed with different gifts. We all have
    different gifts or talents. The same is true of the animals, if a
    person fools around with them. Long ago, my grandfathers told me about
    this.

    A person who kills an animal should be really careful about
    spilling the blood. If a woman steps over it, she will scrub it right
    away. That’s what they said, not the way things are today. But maybe it
    still happens. I follow this same custom myself. Even if I am given
    some meat, I am very careful with it. I watch to see that the blood
    does not drop onto the floor. If it does, I mop it up right away. And
    in the future, you will see it in this light, you know, you who will be
    in your younger years three generations from now. By the time you hear
    me, I will be gone.

    These are the stories that I heard long ago. They were my
    grandfathers’ stories, and they were really old when they left this
    world. I was very young when they told me the stories.

    Thank you. That’s all!

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REFERENCE LINKS

David Westall's Northern Manitoba Mosaic
Index of Native American Museum Resources on the Internet
Native American Homepages
Hayehwatha
Native American Resources at the Smithsonian
American Indian Music: Audio Samples
The Horse in Blackfoot Indian Culture: Online Book
Native American Portrait Gallery
National Museum of the American Indian
Sioux History
PUKATAWAGAN: Reflections of a Wimistikosiw Visitor