Bear's Den: "Crazy Dogs in Washington - Have They Been Eating Funny Mushrooms Or What?"

They say that Indians have goofy names. I don´t know… I´ve never thought that Walks-As-Bear was all that weird. But then… being strange myself… maybe I´d never figure it that way, hmm? Still, American Indians call it as they see it and that sure goes for names. It´s not all that complicated. You call something as it appears. Yep, and man… the stuff going on in this country´s government these days makes me think that the politicians have been munching funny mushrooms. That´s because they are acting like… crazy dogs.

Lately, we´ve been putting up foodstuffs for the coming Papoonwi (winter). So it was that I happened to be sitting on the front porch shelling purple-eyed peas the other night. It was both late and dark and the only sounds were the low cricket and frog serenade being sung. I had my back to the woods as I worked the mechanical task, thinking about a storyline for my next novel. Yeah, I was deeply ingrained in thought and dang near threw the bowl of peas up in the air when a coyote howled behind my back, no more than fifteen feet away. He´d likely been walking up the hill from the lake and probably hadn´t noticed me until he´d gotten that close. When he decided that, whatever I was – I wasn´t normal, he let out a howl to advise his other compatriots in the pack. That started the yipping and yapping, and well… there you go. I somehow managed not to drive my head through the porch roof when the howl sent me rocketing skyward. Heck… I never even spilled a pea. But, I´ve been writing the novel Witiku as of late, and it features the Michigan Dogman – a spooky werewolf-like dude. The story is always in my head and it so happened that I was mentally scribbling a scene when the coyote tilted his head and howled. Um-hmm, so maybe this made the moment even more apropos, eh.

Anyhow, the wi'sis (dogs) yowled like a bunch of banshees, just inside the woods and down the hill a short distance away. Yeah, and after my heart quit trying to beat itself out of my chest, I smiled. I´ve worked in the woods around coyotes my whole life and know their crazy antics well. Coyotes have a tendency to do some dense things. Unlike a wolf, they´re as much a scavenger as they are a hunter, and they often eat stuff that they shouldn´t, namely… crazy mushrooms. Sure, and this makes the silly canine even more nutso. If you search history, you´ll find that many Indians who carried the name of ´Crazy Dog´… got this moniker because that individual acted like a dog that had eaten goofy fungi.

The Creator placed bisk-ah-da´ans (mushrooms) here for two-legged use. Indians have always prized wild mushrooms – whether they are gill, tube, shelf, cup, coral, jelly, saddle, or stomach fungi. They are used for food, medicine and spiritual purposes for American Indians. All non-poisonous mushrooms were utilized in days gone by – even corn mold. The Poncho Indians liked corn smut, fungi that grew on the corn stalk. They call it wahaba-hthi (corn sores). And, fresh mushrooms of all kinds were boiled and added to acorn soup and other stews. Mushrooms were collected and dried and then shredded before storing for later use. Soups were made out of shredded mushrooms throughout the year. While the Zunis primarily dried them for winter use, the Iroquois fried them and added them to soups all the time.

Heck, a favorite of the almost all Indians is puff balls. Traditionally, puff balls are cut large into chunks and fried in sunflower oil, bear oil or deer tallow, just like meat. They´re also peeled, diced and then boiled in water with salt, grease and bits of meat as seasoning; that makes a tasty puffball soup. Yep, and the Omaha love mikai´ hthi (star sores), as do the the Blackfoot, whose name for puffballs is ka-ka-too (fallen stars). The old Blackfoot oral story goes that these white fungi fall from the sky during supernatural events. You bet´cha, and because of this, puff balls are assumed to have a connections with ghosts. So, they´re often dried and burned as an incense to keep the ghosts away. Puff balls are a symbol of warmth, too, about like a welcome mat, nowadays, at a body´s front door. They often decorated lodges or homes in olden times. Images of puffballs were painted on the outside of the lodge as a talisman, and hung at the entrance to insure warmth would always be present inside the house. Heck, puffballs were also worn by men as a necklace, which gave off a ´delicate odor´. Remember, there wasn´t any "Old Spice" aftershave in the "Old Days". Yeah, and along these lines, mushrooms were carved into images as part of a medicine person´s mystic doo-dads because mushrooms showed spiritual power.

Speaking of power, there´s also the absolute medicinal power of the fungi. Now gathering and consuming mushrooms is a dicey business – you may eat a bad one, eh. In long ago moons, if a two-legged became ill after eating a poisonous mushroom, an antidote was made by boiling dried deer brains and stump mushrooms in water. The patient then drank the greasy broth. Yep, I know it´s gross; but it works. Puff balls were used as poultices on swellings and abscesses. Powdered lichens were used on teething infants´ gums, or applied to tooth abscesses. The Kiowas used dried spores of puffballs as a styptic on cuts and scratches and umbilical cords of infants. The Cheyenne used a mixture of purple coneflower roots mixed with puffball spores and skunk oil in the treatment of boils. Yes´um, and other uses abound. The Crow used morels as a soap substitute, the Sioux used lichens as a dye. And, lichens collected from box elders were boiled down and used as syrup, akin to maple. So see? Tons of overall uses.

Spiritually, a mushroom could be pretty doggone potent, also. The Fly Agaric is one such fungus. It usually only grows in birch or pine tree woodlots. It´s a pretty thing, with a bright red cap and white polka dots on top and creamy white gills and stem below. Yet, eat too much and you´ll need the deer brain stew. Eat just the right amount, and you´ll be headed to an LSD-like state where everything is surreal. The effects can last for 10 hours, starting with nausea and extreme sweating and ending with sleep invaded by wildly vivid dreams. But, sometimes, sleep doesn´t come, and the visions… are viewed while wide-awake. What they see is real to them but others merely see their… craziness. Some Indians used it to help them get to a place where they could see things clearly. Personally, I see stuff a lot better with a clear head to begin with. All I´ve ever needed… is the quiet solitude of the Earth Mother´s creation and prayer to connect to the Master of Life´s meanings.

But many do eat these dangerous little fungi – two and four-legged, alike. Deer, squirrels and other animals eat mushrooms, especially when pickings are slim; and that includes coyotes. And just so´s you know… coyotes are nocturnal and hardly ever fall asleep once they´ve ingested this loony mushroom. They´re already a goofy dog and after consumption of this hallucinogenic, the way they act and the things they do are down-right crazy to any sane two-legged observing them. Whatever they´re seeing and believing is just downright nuts to those possessing sanity. Yes´sir, and that there is what makes me think that the politicians in Washington nowadays have been eating funny mushrooms. Um-hmm, because they… are acting like crazy dogs.

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

David Walks-As-Bear is an Inter-Tribal Elder and Kispoko Shawnee Indian. He works as a private game warden and detective captain, 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