Motorcycles & Sweetgrass

Those with darker skin who were not yet adults and free of this mandatory education called it the Angry Place. Still, she put up with it. It had taken a long time to get here and she instinctively knew it would take her a much longer time to get home. Wherever that was––she had no idea if it was north, south, east or west. It was just far away. As soon as she arrived, she was told stories of one of the girls trying to run away. She wasn’t the type to break the rules like that. Instead, she decided to deal with the present by concentrating on the past and the future: remembering the family she had just left, and imagining the family that she would someday have.

He lay there for hours, fading in and out of consciousness, bits and pieces of past lives trying to claw their way to the surface.

Wendigos, his long-dead mother. Women and men he’d known, fought and loved. Hunting deer. Buffalo. Whales. Creation. More memories than a hundred people could possibly have, yet they were all his. He just lay there, as his past ran over him, like pages from his life randomly flipping by.

Then, from the recesses of his damaged mind, she appeared.

The face that had once stopped him from wandering the country, the body that had made him forget all the others (at that time anyway) and the smile that had made him hold his breath.

“Making me wait is a luxury you won’t have much longer,” [Lillian] said in Anishnawbe, the language of her people. She spoke it like all the old-timers did, with strength and confidence, not hesitantly and softly like the youngsters who took the language in university, if they took it at all.

Maggie […] responded, also in Anishnawbe, but with not quite the same command. Still, she was more accomplished with her Native tongue than most of the community. If nothing else, that was the legacy Lillian and her husband, may his soul rest in peace, would leave behind. All their kids spoke the language––some better than others, but at least they spoke it. And in this day and age, that was their little miracle.

“Never mind. You wouldn’t understand. It’s an Anishnawbe thing.”

“Mom, I'm Anishnawbe. We all are.”

Lillian put her hand on Maggie’s shoulder. “No child, you’re what they call nowadays a First Nations. They don’t necessarily mean the same thing.”

Land...no issue affected Native peoples and non-Native peoples so strongly and yet so differently. On the one hand, White people thought land was there to be owned and utilized. […] Otherwise it was wasted. […] Native people, on the other hand, saw themselves as being part of Nature. It was a big huge intertwining web. You could no more own the land under your feet than you could the sky over your head […].

But colonization had a nasty tendency to work its way into the DNA, the beliefs and philosophies and the very ways of life of the people being colonized. Nowadays, some of the people on Maggie’s Reserve, other than having a good tan, were indistinguishable from White people.

Lillian, however, had been what could be called an old-fashioned Indian, and she had taught her family respect for this land.

“You have to understand, your mother came from a time when people still believed in mystical and magical things. The forest was alive. There were spirits everywhere. […] Today’s world is very different.

How active or magical is your Band Office? Not a lot seems alive today to those old-fashioned Indians. I think she wanted you to understand some of what she felt growing up. It made life more interesting, and more Anishnawbe. I think Lillian wanted that for you.”

“She was a very passionate young woman. Grandmothers aren’t born grandmothers. Wise men and women aren’t born wise––wisdom is something achieved over years of experience. And for some, that experience includes…skinny-dipping.”

“Virgil, I loved my mother more than anybody else could possibly know. But she died. She had to die. We all do. And while it is sad that I will never see her again, I know that she was contributing to what we call the circle of life. She passed on so that somewhere out there, a baby could be born in her place. You know how much she loved her grandkids, all kids. This was not a great sacrifice for her.”

“Unlike you, I’m trying to avoid dying. For my people, the novelty wore off several generations ago.”

“Your people are my people.”

“Tell that to all the priests and ministers who used to look after my people.[…]”

“[…] Well, blame free will and all that. […] [M]y friend, we both loved Lillian. I didn’t think we should be enemies. And many people seem to really want and love you, so I––“

“Sorry, but I am not loved like you are. I am not loved, I am beloved. There's a substantial difference […] When you’re beloved, you get all the same warm and fuzzies as you do when you’re loved, but there’s a lot less responsibility involved. […] You know, every parent wants their kid to grow up like you, but most of them are actually closer to me. Perfection is boring. Flaws are interesting.”

Virgil remembered Dakota’s parents had strongly embraced the Canadian lifestyle. They probably hadn’t seen fit to fill her head with stories of Anishnawbe history or culture. Their daughter should have her feet firmly planted in the here and now, they thought. […] Dakota knew more French than Anishnawbe, and more English history than Anishnawbe history. Her only connection to the past had been Lillian. But now wasn't exactly the time to fill her in on the details. It would have to wait.

“You remember those stories about the trickster, the ones that Grandma told us? Him,” Virgil said.

“Who is Nanabush, to you? You tell me.”

Virgil mentally went through all the stories his grandmother had told him over the years, and also through what he’d read recently. “He’s a hero, a fool, a teacher, someone silly, someone clever––my grandmother would say he’s us.”