Bear's Den: "The Story of Maple Sugar – Salteaux Style"

Ah yes… the Sap Moon. About the time that this lunar circle shows up, the maples are a bleed´n goo by the bucketfuls. Yeah, and everything from pancake syrup to candy is being made from the sticky tree juice. Well, I´ve always been a tad gullible. Um-hmm. And that´s why folks think I´m a dupe for believing in the story of how maple sugar came to be. Yeah, well… okay. Just call me a… ´sap´, then.

I´ve been called a lot of names including "a sap". When folks refer to me as a sap, they mean a gullible person or a dupe. But, we´re not talking about me – uh-uh. No, we´re chat´n about a different kind of sap here, and I don´t mean the one that a cop carries hidden in his pocket, either. Nah, that was the kind´a sap that used to be so popular with law enforcement in America in the old days. Police uniforms even came with a long, narrow ´Sap Pocket´ in the leg, designed for carrying this little thumper. It was a blackjack type of doo-hicky, designed to put bad guys to sleep with just a touch. Most police departments don´t allow their use nowadays. So, what we´re discussing here is the iswi-baakwa-togan (Sugar Bush) aka: the maple tree, and its ´sap´. And, while I may be more than a little sappy, I really do know the difference between legend and myth. Legend, after all, has basis in fact, whereas myth has no such claim to fame. In my notion, the story I´m about to share is considered as myth and not legend. But I don´t know? Then again, though, I´m kind´a sappy, too, eh.

Since we´re in the Wah-pic-um-il-cum (part of February & part of March) time, and maple sugaring is a going thing right now, I thought I´d relay an old Salteaux Indian story about how maple sugaring came to be. Like many of the People of the Three Fires, the Salteaux Indians have a figure within their culture who is a kind of benevolent champion. They call him, Nah-nah-boo-shoo. In many ways he´s like one of our modern-day superheroes, like Batman, eh. Yep, and this superhero has a kindly grandmother named No-kee-muss that he loves very much. Sure, and whereas Batman is constantly saving the citizens of Gotham City from baddies like the Joker, Riddler and Penguin, old Nah-nah-boo-shoo kept the Salteaux safe from a race of mischievous little people that live in the forests called the Buh-gwuh-jih-nih-nee (Little People of Darkness). They seldom come out during the day; they´re very similar to the Irish Leprechaun, in that they´re always playing pranks on normal two-leggeds. But, they can get down-right mean, too. So the Salteaux count on their superhero to protect them from these miniature miscreants. Now, with this tale, we´re going back thousands of moons here – okay? I´ll summarize it a bit; it goes something like this.

One fall day, after Nah-nah-boo-shoo had been around the Earth Mother playing tricks on the Little People of Darkness to keep them at bay, he learned that they had a plan to kidnap his granny and kill her. Yep, I said kill her. Remember… I told you that they could be mean, didn´t I? Anyways, Nah-nah-boo-shoo thwarted their plan by snatching up his grandmother and whisking her off to a stand of maple trees that were on fire with their bright fall foliage. The Little People of Darkness had been hard on his heels in pursuit, but they suddenly halted. Having never seen the blazing fall colors of the maples in daylight, they were terrified that the forest was on fire. So, they raced back to their holes and jumped in, to hide underground. Thus, granny was saved.

Nah-nah-boo-shoo was so pleased with the Maples for saving his grandma, that he built her a fine home high within the beautiful leaved branches of the maples, so that he could be close by to protect them, too. Hmm. What´cha think? Kind´ve a variant on the old Bat Cave, eh? Anyhow, Nah-nah-boo-shoo and his granny lived happily in the maples until one day, in the time of Wah-pic-um-il-cum, some Indian people came to ask Nah-nah-boo-shoo if he could get them some sugar. They knew about an Indian people of the south who had this stuff, because they had traded for it before. It was sweet and tasty. Old grandma encouraged Nah-nah-boo-shoo to go and get them some, as she craved it, too. After thinking it over, Nah-nah-boo-shoo had a better idea. He appreciated the maple tree and saw a way to keep it special to the Indian, and, at the same time, give his granny and the visitors what they wanted and needed. So… he made the sugar bush´s sap sweet and told the Indians how they could draw it off, boil it down and make their own sweet. Voila! Maple sugar was born.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Like I said, I do know the difference between legend and myth – okay? I still like this story – no matter what. So, if favoring it makes me too much of a dupe and way too gullible, then so be it. Just call me a… ´sap´.

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

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 his home paper The White Lake Beacon: 231-894-5356 or visit his website at: www.Walks-As-Bear.com

Newest Novel:

"Shamus Ghillie U.S. Secret Service in MEDICINE HAT"

Whiskey Creek Press, ISBN: 978-1-60313-730-0

Historical Fiction/Western

Please Visit: www.Walks-As-Bear.com to learn more.