Living Our Language_ Ojibwe Tales & Oral Histories - Anton Treuer [58]
[25] I used to hunt all the time myself, but not any more. Over this way I was having drives made for me, those white guys were making drives for me. I’m waiting in the stand there on the top edge of a slough again where I was put. I hadn’t heard a thing when a great big buck stops in mid-stride just close. It wasn’t far; he stood close there the whole time. When I looked at him, boy he was just beautiful. I was all decked out in blaze orange, but it was just like he stared at me the whole time, as he stared at me over there, and he stared and stared. Then my rifle was here. But I didn’t grab it, as I just kept my eye fixed on him. Boy, he [looked] so fine as he walked up close, just regal and right by the slough the whole time. Well, what am I doing, I thought as those white guys were so upset about [the deer] they had permitted to pass by them. Gee, that one white man showed up and I had him go over there.
[26] Then somebody talked to me close by in Ojibwe. “Near here, right near here he was so close to that deer over there,” he tells me. “Yeah,” I say to him. Again I spoke Ojibwe to him. “Truly,” I tell him. “I am tracking him down really close here. I’m searching for him so I can properly kill him,” I tell him. “I saw him the whole time,” I tell him. “That deer was just nice. I never let him out of my sight,” I tell him. “He walked by just dignified and then went off in the woods.” Then I asked that guy, I told him as I was asking him that I look after him a little bit in my life. So I asked him, “What am I doing,” I tell him. “Yes,” he says. “No. It wasn’t meant for you to kill this one,” he told me. “Don’t ever try to kill this one again,” he told me. “You love that animal,” he said. “And they’ll love you too. The Spirits will bless your children,” he said. “Never intentionally kill one again,” he told me. “You’ll get abandoned. The Spirits will abandon you if you kill them intentionally,” he said. “Now those Spirits are animals and the so-called deer. Something will happen when you make a tobacco offering too, that’s how it will become known what you have not done.”
Why We Take Care of Our Earth
[27] That old man told me this too: “One time as you come to know about things, maybe you will have that kind of fortune too,” that old man said. That too, I think about all the time. I want to let my thoughts go to a certain place. If I’m going to make a mistake or misspeak at times, I’m not scared, only a little bit, but not really. That old man told me other things too. “Dos and don’ts. You shouldn’t lie about things,” he said. I was told that when he gave a speech, “Don’t be bashful to speak.” That’s what that old man said. Those old men always used to come around telling me that. “And don’t worry about things like making a mistake while speaking,” he said.
[28] One time, one time when I was starting to [help] carry these Drums, I was talked to by those old men. That’s for sure, it’s when I was just starting to [help] carry those Drums, helping out and then carrying that one Drum myself. “He is being heard on purpose so that he’ll carry these Drums and know about them.” “You will be blessed, your body will be blessed. And your children, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren, all your friends and all your relatives—they will all be blessed when you ask the ever-present Spirits that take care of this earth. And also, we don’t own this land. You can never own it. We only take care of it. But those white people, ‘Hey I own this land.’ Hey, you guys can’t own it. Maybe, maybe the ones who lowered it here shall own it. But he can’t own it. He can’t say that he will own it. You live on this good earth but for the grace of God. And that Kindly Spirit told us to look after this here, to take care of this earth and look after these creatures, so that we can take good care of these animals, and these birds, and the fish, and the lake, the trees, all of these things.” He said that we’ve been told to be caretakers.
[29] The people have been