Living Our Language_ Ojibwe Tales & Oral Histories - Anton Treuer [53]
[5] It was just like that when they bestowed the gift on them; that’s why those Sioux Drums are there, when the Indian people are looked after so well. That’s why these Drums exist there. So they went over that way, out there toward the west, they left going out west. The Drum always only goes over there toward the east. It can’t return over there.
[6] And the ones over there at Round Lake, these Indians here blessed them at Round Lake. The [Dakotas] themselves taught about them, too, up until the Drums went a long ways away over there and they loved them and wanted the Drums to be given the very best care. That’s why the Drum came into being so that they could help the Indians in their blessing.
[7] This is how I became so learned myself about what that old man told me, as he was always telling me things when I was small. I couldn’t remember then. But as I am now an elder myself, maybe I remember what that old man used to tell me. It’s just like yesterday or the day before when I think about what that old man used to tell me about, as he told me about all spiritual matters and everything about this road—when they were hanging out their baskets for sale and working on birch bark embroidery. They would leave and go to the trader’s shop. So this old man converses with me, “Hey! Come here. Come here, come in. Get over here quick.” Then I would sit down, “All right sit down. Drink some tea.” He only drank tea. I got fed there, and I got fed a lot.
[8] He would tell me about things that would make me smarter, like the talk I give there at the Drum Ceremony. I helped them when I was thought of, and they would tell me this about those Spirits. This was all the time. That one old man would tell me things here in a certain way. And when I prepared to leave, a little while later he would get ready to take off and show up where they were hanging the laundry. “Hey, come here. Come here my little brother.” That’s what they called after a while. “Hey, come here.” So I would go inside there again. Not some little hut—they had huge wiigiwaams. So in here, “All right, sit down. Drink some tea.” “Maybe not for me.” I had [already] stopped by from time to time when he told me about all these things. But he wouldn’t tell me about the same things. So I certainly learned, and for a long time. I didn’t remember then. But as I came into my old age, I arrived at an understanding of what those old men had been telling me about. And that’s why I’m so knowledgeable about this myself. I don’t know everything. But maybe sometime I’ll certainly come to understand that which those old men told me.
[9] So I would get ready to leave, “Wayaa am I ever full.” “Hey I even got a little stomachache,” I used to think as I was crawling, “very much so.” But I couldn’t say that. When you hold them in such high regard for what they’ve told you, you give them your tobacco after they tell you about things. After I was told about these things, when I prepared to leave and had a stomachache [from overeating], then I would go. And that old man really gave me a talking to, and that’s why all those elderly men did that.
[10] Perhaps they knew my [destiny] was to carry a Drum and come to know about it. That’s why they told me about stuff there, why that old man told me about this. I wasn’t told about this constantly. But that Dedaakam and that