Living Our Language_ Ojibwe Tales & Oral Histories - Anton Treuer [56]
[19] Later on they gave it to me. He put me in a different position so I could be the carrier. He removed me from the east [stick]. I had been sitting here for just a little while, that’s it. Then that guy called Naawigiizis, his dad passed away. That old man had been named the Drum Keeper. He was the Drum owner. I’m certainly going to remember that guy. Then he said this, “That guy called Naawigiizis should be given his Drum.” Then he said, “I can’t take care of him or give [enough] to that Drum; it’s best to use someone who’s already a member here. Seat him,” he said. So that one warrior woman said that I was starting to be seated myself. Then I was shifted over there. I sat with Aagawaat as he was called. As I sat with him I thought he would help me at first, as that old man who had passed away where I was sitting was first. And first of all it was going to be the third stick, the third stick it was. It was over there in the east; it’s over there that I had been seated.
The Power of the Drum
[20] And your Drums are sacred things even there in the saw-mill where you used to work or where I worked myself on the other side of the lake. As I was lifting a wooden beam, I pulled a muscle in my back. I was just unable to do it. I thought I was strong enough when I saw it. Too bad! That’s all done with now. “You could never manage being over there. I’ll give you strength,” that’s [what I was told] there at the Big Drum Ceremony. Right there. This was before I was a member on those Drums, when I came inside the Drum ceremonial there. The [Drum] was sounding out as I came in, and in the middle of leading out a song that old man Aagawaat, whose position I would assume, came after me here. Then that one guy, that old man who was called Nitamigooneb. Nitamigooneb was his name, and I still have his old position. So he tells me, “All right. Take your position there. I am asking you to be a Drum member. All right, you answer him yourself.” That’s what that old man told me, “Don’t speak as you are being asked to become a member on the Drum. But your children and your relatives will have a place at the Drum too. They won’t have any misfortunes, and will come live in a good way.”
[21] And I was in poor health too. My back was ailing me. Holy buckets! Although I was disabled I was going to be healthy, that’s how I was going to be now when I started walking again. Well now, that’s what Mashkiin told me. “You will never have good luck with your back,” he told me. “But for these songs, you should dance for him that third one,” he says. Medwe-ganoonind was just starting to dance there. “Dance.” Well [I was uncertain] whether I’d be able to dance, I’m thinking. I used to dance. I was a traditional war dancer when I danced. “Well, dance,” he says. “That song there is almost done there,” he tells me. Barely, I’m barely able to walk, as there were all kinds of things messed up in my back when I got to my feet. Now at this time I had circled [the Drum] twice, and again there things changed for me, as I was able to dance again. I had now circled around three times here as I was dancing, and then my ailments were gone. I am told by him, “Boy, unreal!” I flopped down here in perfect health with everything changed around for me while I was being talked to by that Mashkiin. He tells me, “Your back won’t act up now. It’s all over,” he told me. That was Mashkiin as he’s called. So I asked that old man, my namesake, if he would be a namesake for me as well as that one who was a Drum Warmer. That there was