Living Our Language_ Ojibwe Tales & Oral Histories - Anton Treuer [98]
On the Moon
[1] When I was a little boy, there weren’t many cars. There were only horses, Indian ponies. Well one time my father told me, “Toady there are a lot of horses,” he says. “Later on,” he says, “there are going to be a lot of cars, a lot of gasoline [-powered] automobiles,” he says. “There’s going to be a lot of fancy cars,” he says. “And those trains, they’ll come here too,” he says. “And there will be a lot of those trains too,” he said. “There will really be a lot of them over there where I am from. The ox carts won’t be driven any more.”
[2] “Also,” he said, “I want to say that there will come to be a lot of airplanes. And there will be a lot of tractor-trailers too.” he says. “Maybe you don’t think about the consequences of this,” he says. “But I worry about it. And also,” that old man said, “sometime the white people are going to get it in their heads,” he says, “to try to go to the moon,” he says. And that’s what happened: they went to the moon. My father had premonitions; he could see what was going to happen in the future.
[3] What he said has come to be. Look what’s happening today. The Indian no longer has horses. There are only a few ponies. There are many automobiles. And the trains, well there really are a lot of them. There are also a lot of airplanes. My father saw all of this while he was still alive.
Niibaa-giizhig
[1] Niibaa-giizhig, that’s the old man who taught me everything, and there are still times I visit him, to ask him properly about the things I want to know, and for sure that old man is always teaching me something.
[2] That old man can’t get around much any more. And I hold him in such high regard for having taught everything to me. Recently I was visiting him at the hospital to ask him to come and help us. “All right. I’ll help you,” the old man told me, Niibaa-giizhig.
[3] I told him, “Well you are a big elder. You’re already ninety-two years old. You should rest. You shouldn’t go around doing all kinds of things if it’s cold outside. That’s why you’re sick, why you can’t take the cold and you get a chill. You should keep yourself warm. You should rest.”
They Chased Off the Sioux
[1] Look at what happened in the past, a long time ago. The Indians came from over there toward the east. And they chased those Sioux out there to the west.
[2] There used to be a lot of Sioux here. Well, the Indians came toward Sault Ste. Marie, and, afterwards, they established villages at Madeline Island. Over there they were thinking of where to search for the food that was put in the water, that is [to say] the wild rice. They called it manoomin. And that’s where they found this rice. So over this way, this is where they came.
[3] A lot of Sioux lived here. Then they chased them out to the prairies. They routed the Sioux out to the prairies, all of them. They [were forced] to move and abandon the forests there in Minnesota.
[4] But later on, they had a [pipe] ceremony, the Sioux and Chippewa too. They didn’t fight any more, [and] made friends.
Use Your Tobacco
[1] Long ago there weren’t too many pipes. And they didn’t use tobacco much either. Only the elders used tobacco. When I was a boy, the Indians didn’t smoke tobacco. It was just like a spider had caught the Indians. And that’s why so many of the Indians were sick. And that’s why so many of the Indians died. And we almost lost our faith in everything.
[2] Today a lot of this tobacco is smoked. That’s why the Indian is starting to heal. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. There are lots of commodities and canned foods too. Today there’s a lot of sugar diabetes, yes, and alcohol.
GLOSSARY
This glossary is intended to assist students of the Ojibwe language in their translation