Bear's Den: "History Is Important Because The Past Is Always A Rebuke To The Present."
David Walks-As-Bear
August 21, 2009
I pondered this as I examined the old piece of granite in the bright sunshine. My experience with geology told me something of its origin. Like much in this land of Michigan, it was glacial. Some 15,000 years ago, it had been picked up elsewhere and rolled over and over again inside the heavy snows as they pulled back northward. The action of being in this massive, icy washing machine tended to smooth rough spots. Yet, this one was even smoother than most – it was silky as a baby´s behind. That probably meant that it had been in some ancient stream where eons of coursing water and rubbing against other underwater rocks had buffed it smooth. Then the glacier grabbed it up. The same action which had also gauged out the five Great Lakes, leaving them to fill with fresh water, had also deposited the stone here, far away from its original primeval stream, high upon a plateau at the Rez, above another very long-gone riverbed. That fact alone amazed my simple old brain. How many prehistoric fish had laid their eggs and attached them to this water stone as it lay beneath the surface of a surging primordial river elsewhere? And then, how many years – perhaps thousands – had it rolled around encapsulated within the glacier? And, after its arrival here, how many bine-wae (ruffed grouse) had stood upon it drumming during their mating seasons? How many peshe-was (wildcats) and wi-sis (dogs) had sprayed urine upon it to mark their turf? How many anequois (squirrels) had sat upon it eating their gathered nuts? How many maguas (bears) had rubbed against to scratch their itch? How many peshikthe (deer) and waapitti (elk) had brushed against it in passing? How many pele-thees (eagles) had sat upon it, tearing apart fish they´d caught in the river? But most curiously and interesting of all… to me… was what kind of day it was, mes-quet-wee (a cloudy day) or wash-he-kees-heke (a fine day)… when the two-leggeds had used this fieldstone to chop something?
I sat my basket of gathered berries down and peered at the stone in its age-old anchor of dirt, my eyes drawn to the ancient chip marks upon it. Years ago, as president of the Native American Preservation Council, I investigated many old Indian burial sites and early Indian villages. As I looked at the granite, my opinion formed that this is where it had been, unmolested, save for some telltale marks, since the glacier dropped it off. All surfaces upon the stone were round and smooth but there was one good sized depression that formed a bowl of sorts with a flattish appearance, about the size and shape of say a small, shallow bathroom sink. Within this, I could see hundreds of little strike marks, which had apparently, and obviously, been applied with direct and deliberate force to only this one location. These marks were evident in this part of the stone, and nowhere else. This leads the very amateur archeologist in me to figure that something put those marks there deliberately, thousands of years after the glacier left the stone in its new home, and maybe thousands of years, as well, before I found it while gathering berries. Yep, and me thinks it was probably an Indian, too.
In the deep gully below the plateau, there is but a picika (ribbon) of flowing water now. But several hundred years ago, a larger creek, or possibly a sepe (river), likely ran below the plateau. And probably, the plateau wasn´t much of a plateau back then, either – it was more like level ground, leading to the river´s bank. This river was close to where the brook still converges with the Pentwater River, a good-sized current that flows near the Rez to this day. Um-hmm, and that would´ve made the plateau possibly the apex of where the two streams met – an ideal spot for a small Indian village, winter hunting camp or… an Indian stop-over camping place – who knows? But a stone like this would´ve been ideal for grinding foodstuffs such as tame (corn), orbag-wa-jan-oomin-an (wild rice) or for tenderizing oui-or-thi (meat). Surely the specific strike marks tell me that at one time or another, someone human, used the basin-shaped depression in the stone for hammering or grinding something. So, maybe it was Indians, or French trappers, who lived or camped there – hard to say. But does this mean much? Nah, probably not to anyone but me. I have little doubt that where our cabin sits on the Rez, a distance away, there was once an Indian village. But it was long ago and certainly not a large or even a long-lasting one. So, this is just a jot of history, more akin to say… some future generation finding a picnic table in a long dis-used highway rest area. But history exists everywhere and can teach much… if you´re attentive. And we should be… attentive.
And as I studied the stone, I recalled the email from my brother Kermit Peaceful Eagle, a clan chief of the Chickamauga Cherokee. Peaceful Eagle had sent me a newspaper article about a new bridge about to be built over the Nolichucky River in Tennessee and an aged Indian village that had been unearthed in the process causing work to cease. Work stopped because this piece of history had been uncovered. That would´ve never happed in the old days – the site would just have been bulldozed and the bridge erected. This new awareness goes all the way back to the 1970´s, and I link it to the anti-pollution campaign. Yep, old Iron Eyes Cody´s TV representation of an Indian shedding a tear when he sees how we´d been treating the Earth Mother had set the stage for the American Indian being a role model for earth awareness. Nowadays, even though we don´t pay attention to "how" the Indians lived, spiritually, we do note how they went about their daily routines, thinking that somehow… this makes us look at life as they did. For a traditional Indian like me, the two – spirituality and daily life – are completely intertwined, as I figure they were for the Indians of old, too. This was the "how" for them, as it is for me. University of Tennessee archaeologists excavating the site have found that the place was likely a "good-sized" Native American Indian village and probably either Cherokee or Shawnee in origin. The majority of the finds in the "multi-component" site are from the "middle woodland" period, two to three thousand years ago, and include food storage pits, fire hearths, broken pots and "chert," a low-quality flint used to make tools, and to process food. This was a big and prosperous village. Note the word prosperous, eh. Yes´sir, and the primary concern here is in burial sites – as it should be. So, the respective nations of Shawnee and Cherokee have been involved in this dig.
But as I looked at the stone here on the Rez, I wondered why… it is that we only take what we want from history when, and if… we pay attention at all? The Indians that lived in that village, and those that had used the stone here on the Rez, had not been much like the people that survive here today. They weren´t selfish or socialist, and the Creator had positively governed their lives – every day and in every way. They adhered to this philosophy even if they didn´t like it at times. And thus, their past repeated itself, over and over again in this manner, and life, though sometimes tough, was good for them in the place they called home. But, since their time here in the lands they once roamed, the past is always a rebuke to the present, and usually… a nasty rebuke, at that. That´s because the fact remains that history always repeats itself. Yes´um, and while we could learn from it, we pay no attention, whatsoever… to the damaging replications. Ain´t it the truth, though?
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David Walks-As-Bear is an Inter-Tribal Elder and Kispoko Shawnee Indian. He works as a private game warden and detective and is a novelist and syndicated newspaper columnist living in Northwest Michigan. Contact him at The White Lake Beacon: 231-894-5356 or visit his website at: www.Walks-As-Bear.com
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