Many Many Moons/Appendix

by Lew Sarett

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

The following supplementary notes concerning the legends and superstitions which form the background of certain of the poems of Indian theme in Parts I and Ill may prove helpful to the reader. It is suggested, therefore, that if he wishes to grasp their full meaning, he read the notes in the Appendix before reading the poems in these two groups.

FLYING MOCCASINS

THE BLUE DUCK

"The Blue Duck" is a poetic interpretation of an American Indian medicine dance. In early autumn the tribe, which has gathered in the dancing-ring, is supposed to have placed on a pole by the shore of Ah-bi-tóo-bi (Half-full-of-water),—a lake adjoining the Indian village—a crudely carved wooden duck. The ceremony is begun by the drummers who beat monotonously upon the drums. The singers and the dancers then begin to stamp and to shout and to grunt, and finally to dance. The chief medicine men—priests, "mystery men," who by virtue of their special, powerful medicine songs and their rare "medicines " are thought to have supernatural power in influencing the spirits with which the earth, the sea, and the sky are inhabited—finally break into a song and sometimes a chant, in which they invoke Keétch-ie Má-ni-dó, " The Big Spirit," to send down from the North a big flight of ducks for the fall hunt, "to make a good duck season."

"Keetch-ie Má-ni-dó," a word which appears in 'many of the poems, means literally, " Big Spirit,"—broadly, "The Great Mystery." " The Big God." In the mind of the American Indian of pagan faith, the world is full of spirits, good and evil; the spirits of beasts, of birds, and of the dead; the spirits of the four winds, of the storm and of thunder and of lightning,—the several lieutenants of the " Big Spirit." But above all these minor deities rules Keétch-ie Má-ni-dó, the All-Powerful One.

"The Blue Duck" and the other interpretations of Indian dances should be read aloud. Their rhythmic beat should be maintained vigorously and steadily, except where the dancing ceases and periods of chanting are noted.

CHIPPEWA FLUTE SONG

Notwithstanding the seeming chaos and lack of melody in Indian song, the Indian is very musical. Every phase of his life and every aspiration finds expression in some lyric burst of music. There are religious songs, hunting songs, and medicine songs; dream songs, lullabies, and love songs; war-dance, pipe-dance, and social dance songs; gambling-game songs, songs narrating personal achievements, songs to accompany gifts and songs of thanks, songs for the spirits, songs for the dead, and songs to heal the sick,—songs without number, In all his music there are many weird, haunting qualities—certain qualities and certain motives which American musicians might profitably study, and develop into a distinctive American contribution to musical history. Indian music may be instrumental,—as for example the music of the Béebee-gwun, the Indian flute—or it may be vocal. The latter may be accompanied, as in the dances, the medicine songs, and similar ceremonies, by drums and rattles, or it may be unaccompanied.

All Indian music, despite its seeming formlessness, its complexity, and its cacophony, is for the most part quite simple, and fairly definite in form. In most of his songs he uses but few simple notes, and these usually in downward progression, beginning with high falsetto tones and ending in low guttural sounds, punctuated with an occasional slurred note, a slide, a quaver, a wail, a call, or an explosive shout.

Although the "Chippewa Flute Song" will yield its melody through any one of several simple methods of interpretation that will occur to the reader, if in interpreting the poem aloud he will improvise his own melody, merely bearing in mind the suggestion that he should chant the words softly with an occasional downward slide at the end of every sentence—not line—and at other points where the voice naturally falls, he will most accurately catch the spirit of the poem and of the original situation which I have sought to express.

THE SQUAW-DANCE

"The Squaw-Dance," or "Woman's Dance," often called the "Give-Away Dance," is a poem written from the point of view of the "outsider" and descriptive of a very common Chippewa social dance in which both men and women may participate. In the United States, bands of Indians often gather at some reservation village to celebrate the Fourth of July with a big "war-dance" to which white men are invited. Generally, however, the "war-dance" is really the rollicking, social "Squaw-Dance""; the celebration is called a "war-dance" often for the benefit of the gullible, thrill-hunting tourist to whom all Indian music is alike.

In the course of the dancing it is customary for the Indian to present a gift—a bit of tobacco, a trinket, a pair of moccasins,—to some friend, either a man or a woman. Whereupon the recipient must dance with the friend thus complimenting him, and return the honor with a gift of equal value. And thus with these frequent interruptions due to the "giving away" of presents, the celebration continues all day with much vigorous dancing, loud laughter, and lusty singing. The Squaw-Dance celebration has no place for a melancholy, moribund person, or for a dour, dyspeptic misanthrope.

BEAT AGAINST ME NO LONGER

In this interpretation of an Indian love song the lines beginning, "Be not as the flat-breasted squaw-sich . . . who hides three sleeps in the forest . . .," refer to an old Algonquian custom that a young girl in the period of puberty must leave the village in shame and must live alone for a certain period of time in a wigwam in the wilderness.

THE CONJURER

The chée-sah-kée, the conjurer or juggler, is a sort of mystery-man who works in league with the bad spirits and Much-ie Má-ni-dó, the Devil-Spirit, rather than with the good spirit-helpers of the medicine men,—although some conjurers may be both chée-sah-kée and medicine men. This magician is regarded by the older superstitious folk,—and by many pagan Indians today,—as possessing the power to establish a league with the evil spirits, whereby he may perform great feats of magic and of spiritualism. In one of his performances the juggler is bound with ropes of tough bark and is placed in the chée-sah-kan, his specially built teepee, the poles of which are so stout and so deeply planted in the earth that they cannot be moved by a human being. The conjurer then chants his "magic song," uses his "charms," invokes the aid of the spirits, and thereby performs the feats suggested in this poem.—if his medicine is "strong." (If a conjurer or medicine man ever fails, it is not the fault of the religion, or of the philosophy; the medicine was "bad," or some jealous spirit treacherously worked against him.) "The Conjurer" is a very free interpretation of the chant which the chée-sah-kee sings as he lies bound in the wigwam and performs his conjurings. The short, isolated, indented stanzas in the poem are the conjurer's "asides" to his Indian audience.

Naturally one may be skeptical about the power of a man to work these wonders. Nevertheless, they are actually performed by Indian "doctors" today. My Indian friend, Ah-zhay-waince, "Other-Side," a medicine man of the Pigeon River Reservation, can perform these feats and many others as mysterious.

RED-ROCK, THE MOOSE-HUNTER

When the primitive Indian of the Canadian North went hunting, he "called" or lured moose by two methods. Sometimes with a bit of birch-bark he would imitate the call of a moose. This scheme still survives among woods Indians. and is familiar to the white man. In the other lesser-known method, during the quiet evening when it is the habit of moose to come out of the "bush" to the lakes, to drink, to feed upon the lilies, and to plunge into the water in order to shake off the moose-flies, the deer-flies, and the "no-see-ums," the moose-hunting Indian would wade into the water of a "plug-hole" or "moose-lake." Here for hours he would imitate the splashings and the drippings of feeding moose, on the theory that moose in the vicinity would in the quiet evening hear the sounds and be attracted by them. This primitive, little-known method lies at the foundation of the poem, "Red-Rock, the Moose-Hunter."

RAIN SONG

This interpretation of an Algonquian-Lenape medicine song for "making rain" is based upon an old Indian superstition. During this medicine dance a buckskin sack containing small mica-like scales is placed on a boulder by a stream near the dancing-ground. These bits of mica,—the "rain-medicine,"—are believed to be scales from the body of the legendary Great Horned Sea Monster. It is believed that if these scales are thus exposed during the ceremony, the Thunderer and his allies, the Thunder-Spirits and the Rain-Spirits, who loathe the Sea Monster, will come with the fury of their storms and clouds and rains to attack their traditional enemy who has the impudence to lift his head out of the stream, and the effrontery to expose a part of his body to the gaze of the Thunder-Beings.

The conversational section at the close of the poem is not a part of the song proper. I have added these typical colloquial "asides" to illustrate the contrast between the loftiness and the idealizations often attained in Indian song and ceremony, and the commonplaceness and the realities of much of his extraceremonial, colloquial talk. Similarly, my desire to keep the characters in this book true to type, a type that is peculiar in its combination of idealism and materialism, the beautiful and the crass or vulgar, the primitive and the modern,—this desire accounts for many of the incongruities, the strange idioms, and the inelegant phrases in "Rain Song" and in certain other poems.

The "Rain Song" most clearly illustrates the philosophy and the practices of the medicine men. Many Indians, even in this day, have utter faith in the power of the medicine men to accomplish miracles of healing, jugglery, and wonder-working. I have already commented briefly upon their practices; by virtue of their rare medicines,—herbs, clays, skims, substances of all sorts having "power,"—and with the aid of their medicine songs which came to them in a dream from the spirits, these "mystery men" are powerful with the gods. In addition, every medicine man has a special "helper" and adviser, a spirit,—generally that of some bird or beast.—with whom he constantly communes, and of whom he is but the mouthpiece. To illustrate, the night preceding the day set for the ceremonial feast at which I was to be christened or blessed with a Chippewa name, my Indian godfather, Ah-zhay-waince, "Other-Side," had a dream in which his special spirit-guide advised him concerning the name that I should bear. And after the feast, when Ah-zhay-wainee blessed me with the name Pay-shig-ah-deék, "Lone-Caribou," the old mystery-man made a talk in eulogy of his special má-ni-dó and declared that he was acting merely as the agent of his "strong" spirit-helper, the "ThunderBird," one of the extremely powerful Thunder-Gods mentioned in the "Rain Song." Thus because of their power to secure the influence and the advice of these "strong helpers" and the other ghosts of the spirit world, the medicine men may be called upon to appease the wrath of the spirits in times of drought; or to drive out of a sick Indian the bad spirits which it is believed possess him; to regulate the weather; or to invoke the aid of the gods whenever the tribe enters upon some great task. The utter faith of some of the older folk in the power of the medicine man is illustrated by the following incident:

One day J journeyed to the wigwam of Mis-kwée-mee-giz-zi, "Blood-Eagle," an old Chippewa (sometimes written and pronounced "Ojibway") to induce him to join in a canoe trip. I found the old fellow sitting in the sun in front of his cedar shack, morose and stolid, with a high fever and other significant symptoms. In reply to a question concerning the nature of the trouble, old "Eagle" grunted, "I got-um 'sumbtion " (consumption).

"Then why don't you see the doctor at the settlement?"

"I go w'ite man doctor ten sleep ago," he replied; "no damn good! I give-um wan dolla', he give-um wan glass bottle—no-good med'cine! Tomorrow I go Eenzhun med'cine man. He sing 'way Bad Spirits in lung. In t'ree sleep—me—I go hunt wit' you."

Needless to say Mis-kweé-mee-giz-zi didn't turn up for the trip in "t'ree sleep." The old man will never hunt again, except in the Big Hunting Ground.

CHIPPEWA MONOLOGUES

THE WINDS OF FIFTY WINTERS

The council is a meeting at which important tribal matters are discussed, a sort of informal Indian legislative assembly. In the old war days councils were frequently called between tribes to settle differences, or between Indians and white men for the making of treaties, or among the Indians of one tribe to decide tribal and local questions. In these modern days the meetings are generally held for the settlement of problems arising between the Indians and the Federal government of which the Indians are legal wards. If the United States Government, through its Indian Service in the Department of Interior, wishes to investigate tribal conditions or Indian grievances, or desires to determine tribal questions and policies, a council is called, At this meeting appear representatives of the government and spokesmen for the Indians,—generally chiefs and headmen,—who state their cases in "council talks."

The Indian audiences at these councils are very quiet, attentive, and respectful—more courteous than the average audience of white men. They are undemonstrative except for an occasional grunt of approval,—represented in the poems in this group by the exclamations of "Ho! Ho!" and "How!" in italics and parentheses—or an occasional gruff and guttural "Ugh!" or grunt of disapproval or disgust.

"The Winds of Fifty Winters" is a poetic version of a famous Chippewa council which is recalled by the older folk among the Chippewas with many chuckles.

CHIEF BEAR'S-HEART "MAKES TALK"
LITTLE-CARIBOU MAKES "BIG TALK"

The remaining pocms in this group are poetic council talk interpretations suggested by speeches made at councils held by the government and Chippewa Indians for the discussion of certain alleged violations of the "Treaty of 1889," "The Treaty of 1854" and other treaties. Many of the grievances expressed in these monologues obviously represent but one point of view, the Indian's version of the dispute. Nevertheless, although many of his complaints and hardships are due to misunderstanding, to government red tape, or to the Indian's own weaknesses and defects, and are therefore often unreasonable and prejudiced, there is generally in his cause a proper share of truth and adequate grounds for complaint.

In order to give to the original Indian utterance clearness, coherence, and completeness, any Anglicized version of a council talk must contain some of the graces of the white man's language, and some of its nuances of diction and idiom. Although such interpretations may gain in clarity, they necessarily lose much of the original Indian flavor, certain crude, rugged poetic qualities of the original expression in the Chippewa language, with its small but exceedingly suggestive vocabulary limited to strong nouns, strong verbs, and compact, colorful phrases, idioms, and figures. In order, therefore, to catch these more primitive poetic qualities, even though it be at the loss of other virtues, the two poems, "Chief Bear's-Heart 'Makes Talk,'" and "Little-Caribou Makes 'Big Talk,'" are written in the dialect spoken by some of the reservation Indians of the North,—on the theory that this broken, labored, colorful pigeon-English of the remote Indian more accurately registers certain elements of the strange charm and the rugged power of Chippewa oratory.

The phrases "Boo-zhóo!" " Boo-zhóo, boo-zhóo!" and "Boo-zhóo nee-chée!" are forms of the friendly salutation that is common among the Chippewas. They are apparently corruptions of the French "Bonjour!" of the Canadian-French voyageurs and coureurs-des-hois, many of whom have mingled with the Chippewas and have married into the tribe.

In the days of the old frontier the Indian was greatly impressed by the uniforms and the sabers of the cavalry officers. Therefore he spoke of soldiers as "Long-Blades," or "Long-Knives"; and he frequently used these terms to designate all white men. Thus the expression "Long-Blades" in these poems means soldiers and white men.

LITTLE-CARIBOU MAKES "BIG TALK"

The American Indian is usually very deferential and courteous to the aged, not only at councils but at all ceremonies. In this poem, therefore, the interruptions by the young Indians, the "asides," and the sallies (represented in the poem by the indented stanzas in italics and parentheses) and the ensuing amusing colloquy between the shrewd patriarch, LittleCaribou, and his young hecklers, are rather unusual.

It is commonly believed that the Indian lacks humor; that he never laughs or jokes; that he is always the taciturn, sullen, stern type of the theatrical Indian. The idea is erroneous. Although in formal meetings and in his dealings with the white man the Indian is generally a man of a few simple, dignified, stern words, among his own people he laughs often and loud. Moreover, the women and children seem to be forever laughing and joking and giggling over nothing. Among the Indians, especially among the older folk, there are many droll characters that have a subtle sense of humor in addition to the dignity, the shrewdness, and the vigor which most of the better types of Indian possess. The poem, "Little-Caribou Makes 'Big Talk,'" illustrates this little-known side of Indian character and this not uncommon Indian type.

WHIRLING-RAPIDS TALKS

The allegory, "Whirling-Rapids Talks," illustrates the tendency of the Indian to symbolize all the experiences of life. This personification of nature, of every bird that soars and every beast that walks or crawls, and this symbolizing of life by moon and sun, by water, thunder, and lightning, and by the star-people of the sky,—these are of the essence of his poetic thought. Because of his conception of the walking, the swimming, and the green-growing things of the wilderness, it is safe to say that no race has ever established a contact with nature more spiritual or more vital than has the American Indian.

THE END