When I Told My Father That I Was â€å“born-again
Tim Roufs 
a note on tenses
a note on manner
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"This project has been financed in part with funds provided by the State of Minnesota from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the Minnesota Historical Order."
"This publication was fabricated possible in part by the people of Minnesota through a grant funded by an cribbing to the Minnesota Historical Social club from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Whatever views, findings, opinions, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and exercise not necessarily represent those of the State of Minnesota, the Minnesota Historical Society, or the Minnesota Celebrated Resources Advisory Committee."
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Only then, when the priest was talking at my best friend'south funeral, I was thinking about my mother. . . . . . . When she was a little girl, well-nigh ten or twelve years old, my mother was living at Leech Lake.(1) She was an orphan. She was taken over. She was taken from near Onigum due north-east of Walker, and was staying across the lake by Five-Mile Point with some older Indian people who didn't have children. They wanted her to stay with them and said they wanted to train her in the Indian way of life.
Those old people made her piece of work, piece of work. They fabricated her exercise all the cooking, exercise all the washing, and do near everything. I knew the people, but I forgot them. I guess the man'southward name was Ni-o-gáa-bó, "2-men-standing." They didn't take English names. Ni-o-gáa-bó was supposed to be our grandpa on our pure Indian side. The total-blooded Indians were on her mother'southward side. Her mother'south side was Indian, but she was a little French. My mother'due south dad was French out of a Walker Indian. He was a breed.
They travelled around according to the seasons in those days. My first male parent, my real father -- Buffalo, Jim Buffalo(2) -- came up the river from Ashland(iii) with a group of Indians. From Wisconsin they came upwards through the rivers of Duluth. That'south O-ni-gá-míi-sIn, Duluth. They came up by canoes(4) and they met the tribe at Cloquet, by the Addicted du Lac Reservation.(5) In that location they had big powwows and everything. They met all the reservation tribes at the gathering there, and the nifty master Pezeke spoke to all the chiefs.(6)
Pezeke, "Buffalohead Chief," was my gramps.(7)
He was a chief of a group of Ojibwa in Wisconsin, and was one of the chiefs of the Bang-up Lakes. Each of the chiefs took care of the tribe(8) of the area where they lived. Each surface area had a principal who was the aforementioned as a representative or spokesman. These chiefs were spokesmen for the tribe of where they were appointed or elected from. They were spokesmen for the tribe, for the local people, and signed treaties with the whites. My not bad-grandfather signed the Rice Treaty and a lot of those other treaties. Buffalohead chief was practiced at speaking to councils. Men didn't demand to be a chief, they were picked equally a great human being. Pezeke was a great human. Pezeke was Jim and Henry Buffalo'due south granddad.
Jim Buffalo and his brother Henry connected on from the gathering at Cloquet to Leech Lake, coming up the La Prairie River. My mother and dad met on the Mississippi River, at White Oak Point.(9) Subsequently they met, my dad went with my mother'due south family unit and helped them. He helped paddle the canoe up the river, and then he helped mom cutting wood and all that.(10)
They had a coating spousal relationship,(11) according to our Indian custom, and before long my older sister was built-in. We later called her Mary. A 2d child, Nah-gáh-nab, "Caput-one-sitting-downwards," was built-in a year or ii earlier me, but he was built-in too young and a common cold got him.
In the summer of 1902, when I was about to be born,(12) my folks were searching for a living(xiii) along the Mississippi River. A group of relatives divide off and went north to Third River, up by Lake Winnibigoshish.(fourteen) My mom and dad kept going eastward on the Mississippi. They were going down the Mississippi, looking, searching, for berries, blueberries. They were looking to see where at that place were going to be raspberries. They were looking to see where at that place were going to be berries of all kinds. You can find them anywhere now, but so they were looking for berries and plums.
Most the time they reached the place they outset met, Náy-mI-tIg-o-mii-shíi-shi-káhn, White Oak Betoken, my mother said, "At that place's my pain." We were paddling downwardly the river. She told my dad, "You ameliorate terminate." In a footling while the old man put upward the wigwam, with just a few poles. At that place I was. That was a fast deal, boy!
There are not very many built-in similar I have been born. I'one thousand summertime-born.(15) Some people are winter-born, some of them are born in the fall, some people are built-in in the spring. That has something to practice with the weather. Summer-built-in people seem to take some sort of a feeling when a storm is coming. They seem to know that something'southward going to happen past the deed of the weather. They experience how the breezes alter and these waves of heat come in, and they know when a storm'southward coming by the activeness of clouds and the stars the night before. They seem to know alee of fourth dimension what the atmospheric condition'southward going to be. And when I saw them predicting things, telling alee of time what was going to happen, I always asked them, the summer-born elders, "How did you know?"
"Well," they told me, "the summer-borns have a nerve in their trunk that telegraphs them. And that nerve that telegraphs in their body, a nerve on the knee joint or on the paw or in some joints of their hand, tells them that maybe this storm is coming. They know by studying their mind that there are going to be some changes in the weather. And they know that too by the action of the dominicus and the moon. They feel information technology."
Summer-born people are special because they take time to build up their blood for the wintertime. You lot know why? In their first months they get to eat a little more than vegetation. What they get to eat is heavier on the vegetation. They get to eat heavy food. Only they're not whatever ameliorate(16) than the winter-born. A winter-born is not any improve either.
Simply the summer-born can feel it quicker on the rheumatic fretfulness, because they're more afflicted in rheumatic matters and they can feel that. They're more stricken with illness also, if they don't take their claret build upward.
The summer-borns run low on the heat in the winter, but when the estrus comes, the summer-built-in can take in more rut. And in the same way the cold weather doesn't bother the winter-born at all. It stands to reason, but that'southward a point you can't point out, hardly.
My grandad, Ni-o-gáa-bó,always told my mother, "Someday you'll have 2 children. You have care of those 2. You'll have a boy and a girl. You have care of them." Afterwards, subsequently she met my dad, she did have two children, a male child and a girl. She was a niggling girl when she came to them, the old people, Ni-o-gáa-bó and her grandmother, at 5-Mile-Point. She was just a picayune daughter when she was told that. Then, later on on, she did take a male child and a girl. When she settled down and got married she had just what that guy predicted -- it was a boy and a girl, me and my sis Mary.
My mother wondered all the time, "I wonder how did he effigy that out?"
How did he figure that out?
I don't remember my first dad because he died only about when I was built-in. They say he was ever dressed up in a white shirt. He was always in a belong too. He was always wearing a sentry concatenation.(17) He didn't care most losing information technology. He didn't worry most that. My mom told him, "You lot'll lose your spotter."
"But I have to have a lookout," he'd tell her.
He talked Indian, simply he was a brood. He was Buffalohead Chief'southward grandchild. He was a very wise man. And that'southward my start begetter; that'south my dad.
He and my uncle Henry came upwards the river together. Henry made it up to Leech Lake, and got married up there too. He married ChI-nó-dIn, "Big Air current," "Big Storm."(18) Katie Buffalo was her English proper noun, and they got along together. She did beadwork. She made quilts. She made moccasins and everything. And my uncle didn't have to do much. She told him once to go down in the hay meadow and start tying the wild hay. He went, but snuck away. Never did come dorsum.
I tin recollect the vest of my mother when I was nearly ii years old. When I first really noticed her she was pretty young. She was getting greyness, but she was well-dressed and right in style. She was immature-looking and slender.
My mother was an herbalist and a doctor of midwife doctoring. She knew the nature of Indian medicine.(19) She knew how much it takes, how much medicine to put in a mixture. Wuaay!(20) She doctored white people and everybody. My female parent did a good job. She was not a sinner. She was a good person and was well-liked. My female parent sure was read-up(21) in Indian! She knew the Indian ways. She lived with the Indians and learned from them. She was born and raised and lived for eighty-six years with the Indians.
My mother raised me, simply by the time I was built-in she already had her two arms pulling in dissimilar directions -- ane was pulling toward the Indian manner, and the other was pulling toward the white fashion. And so she was right in the eye. She took both. She took the Christianity of Churches and then she brought in the Indian education of the Great Spirit and put them together. She was a Catholic, yea. She became a Cosmic considering her sis was a brood, half-white half-Indian. Her sister told her, "You should be a Cosmic. You're good enough to be a Catholic." So my mother took a blessing with holy water too. When the priest came, which he did once a month, he put the blessed holy water on my mother: "You're baptized."
That'southward how she became a Cosmic.
Just she notwithstanding believed that the Cracking Spirit gave us the world to live in, that the Neat Spirit gave you life! In the Christian Book the Great Spirit says, "I'll be with you lot anywhere yous recollect of me. Who remembers me, who believes in me, I'll be unto him." That's the same way it is in Indian.
"That's a big thing," she would tell us. "Information technology's true, and from here on there'south no excuse for you not to believe in these things. I have been able to sympathise things. When I was a girl, my male parent and mother died. They were giving the Indian belief to me already past the time they died, and and then I went out to the world alone. Here I am." And she was 80-4 years one-time when she told me that. She had a rough time, just she didn't complain. I recollect that through her way of life she used the all-time of both the Indian and the white worlds.
All this time my Mother, my sister, and I lived with the quondam couple on the west terminate of Leech Lake near Five-Mile bespeak. We travelled around a lot past canoe and I recall that one time we went to Leech River. Nosotros all just camped there at first, and then afterward we made cabins, log cabins. Nosotros camped along the river, years ago, earlier that time I tin think. And I was piffling and then, very piffling. I was only built-in.
In later time we yet travelled by canoes because there were no roads except in a few places. There was game that was something to exist seen! Every morning nosotros'd see the wild life. And that natural wild fauna was our nutrient.
Nosotros trapped some of the animals and took them up to the fur buyers, which was at that time a station by the Indian trading posts at Federal Dam.(22) That's where nosotros got our table salt and salt pork. Nosotros had rock-common salt, busted all up, those days. We got rock-common salt out of the barrels of table salt pork. They(23) would re-boil and refine that. That fabricated expert salt, when information technology was busted up. "Coarse salt" nosotros called information technology.
In those days Peterson Homestead and John S. Smith'southward place were the only places on the Leech River. Those were the only two who lived on that river year 'round. Years agone my father and my grandpa moved in in that location too, just they didn't stay. I think my father's cached there, along the Leech River.
My mother was a little light-skinned, and everything like that, and that's why she had a hard fourth dimension at Ni-o-gáa-bó'south. They wanted her to work at washing and cooking, and, anyhow, she worked also hard. Everybody told her, "That's as well hard of a piece of work yous do." It was too hard for her younger age. Those people were wealthy,(24) just they were still putting too much work on her. And somewhen she was wise enough to take off.
My female parent was still pretty immature at the time -- at the time she stayed with the older Indians most V-Mile Indicate -- but by then she was already very religious and had learned to pay attention to o-náa$-chii-gáy, unusual signs.(25) When information technology comes to faith the Indians take e'er believed in their religion full in mind. And they believe in seeing things, natural signs. They dream of things. They hear things. They see things. And by this -- past seeing, and hearing, and dreaming things -- they get results.
That o-náa$-chii-gáy is something that'south coming to y'all that you notice -- that's the sign. That'southward "the sign that's going to be with yous." That's o-naa$-chii-gáy, and because of that my mother left the older people she lived with at Leech Lake. There was no h2o one time and my mother was supposed to become down to the lake and go some. She was lonesome for her ain mother. She didn't take a mother any longer, and she knew all the remainder of the young folks around there had a mother and father. "How nice it is to be with a male parent and mother," she thought. She remembered her mother. And when she was thinking almost her mother the woman of the firm she was staying at, her grandmother, told her, "At that place isn't any h2o in the pail, in the buckets, the h2o buckets. Go alee and have one of the water pails and go right down to the lake and dip a pail total of water."
They used virtually a ten-quart pail in those days, and she had to walk down to the lake with that in the night. She had to get about a half a block, or a block, yea, about a block or half a block, and that night it was very windy on that trail. Once she got downwardly to the lake she had to step down onto the rocks. All the canoes were out of the h2o, and everything was put away for the nighttime. She stood on the lake, looking out to the lake with tears in her eyes, wondering where her mother was. And all she could hear was a woman'south voice repeating,
"Oh, my little daughter."
"Oh, my little girl."
"Oh, my lilliputian daughter."
She heard that just as obviously as she could, and she stopped crying. She stopped crying, stood there a while, and never heard anything more. She was just right in a higher place the waters, you know, and she heard that vox out into the lake. The lake was rough as well.
She dipped that water into her pail and took it to the house where we lived. Then she sat right there and thought. She said, "Maybe my female parent doesn't want me to be hither."
So she thought she would get to her sister-in-law.
The older people we lived with on 5-Mile Bespeak trained her in the Indian style, but they as well driveling her, and worked her. My mother realized that she worked too much and that it was fourth dimension for her to go her ain mode. "They're never satisfied for what I do," she thought to herself. She called me and she put me on her hand. And I had a sister, my sis Mary. She followed us. My sister was bigger. She walked behind, alone.
I believed nosotros stopped beginning with the Josh Drumbeaters who lived at the outlet of the Leech River at Federal Dam.(26) They lived alongside the high road in a log house. There were two places nosotros stayed that she'd e'er tells about, but I could inappreciably remember much about that. I was pretty young at that time. She stopped at the Drumbeaters when she made information technology abroad from those older people's identify at Leech Lake, merely she didn't stay there as well long because the Drumbeaters didn't believe much in Christianity. They believed in Indian at that place. At that fourth dimension my mother believed in the Catholic Church more than anything else.
The female parent there, Mrs. Drumbeater, was my mother's mother's relative. I remember she was her cousin. They were some sort of a cousin, a 2nd cousin or something. Mrs. Drumbeater and my mother were always together though, and Mrs. Drumbeater always called me "nÍng-wa-nÍss," nephew.(27)
Their boy, Jimmy Drumbeater, is still living nevertheless, and when they come to see me, they know I'yard related to them. And they always recollect a lot of me because we're cousins. We've seen such difficult times in our days. We as well heard about the olden days from my female parent and my aunt, when they were talking together, and we saw how life was in my mother's area, from the olden days until now.
We had an aunt in a town nearly ten or fifteen miles away, and my mother footed that 10 or 15 miles with my sister and me.(28) She went to Betsie Crow in Bena. That was my aunt. That'd be my mother's sister-in-law, Jim Buffalo'south sis.
From in that location on so she lived in a happy dwelling house. She found someone.
Run into, she didn't requite up when she heard those unusual sounds to her ears, the audio of the lake. There are people like that, people who believe in signs like that. It comes to them naturally. There are some people that don't believe in annihilation, and when they do see something existent, and then it'southward a shock.(29)
A sign like my mother saw is a kind of a alarm. It'southward something unusual telling you lot that you accept to be careful.
Or . . . that you have to do something.
Footnotes
two. Paul Buffalo's biological father was Jim Buffalo. His mother later remarried, to Jack Nason. Run across Ch. 36, "Jack Nason, My Dad. My Footstep-Dad."
3. Ashland, Wisconsin.
4. For more information on travelling in the canoe days see Ch. 3, "Canoe Days."
five. Fond du Lac Indian Reservation in Minnesota.
six. See Ch. 5, "Chiefs and Councils" for descriptions of chiefs and their speeches; for data on big powwows and other large gatherings see Ch. 23, "Ni-mi-mean solar day-win : 'Come and Dance, Come and Sing--Living and Spirits Alike.'"
7. Older people were chosen "granddad" or "grandma," even if they were not related. "Peachy-" or "keen-not bad-" was not used when speaking to an elder. Pezeke, Gichi-waishke, of La Pointe on Madeline Island in Wisconsin, was Paul Buffalo'due south bang-up-granddaddy.
"Principal Buffalo, known as Bichiki and Gichi-waishke, was a revered figure in the history of Ojibwe people in the western Lake Superior region. Born around 1759 at La Pointe on Madeline Isle along the south shore of the lake, he was a member of the Loon association. He became an eloquent leader for his people in dealings with the British and American governments."
"In improver to the Treaty of 1854, which contained a provision setting bated a reserve of land for the principal in the hereafter site of Duluth, Buffalo too signed the treaties of 1837, 1842, and 1847, which ceded land across what would become the territories and later states of Wisconsin and Minnesota. In 1852 Buffalo and others made a long journey to Washington, D.C. to protestation the policies of Minnesota territorial officials who sought to remove all Ojibwe people from Wisconsin into Minnesota, centered on a government Indian agency at Sandy Lake. In part through Buffalo'south deportment policies were changed, resulting in the 1854 treaty, which created permanent homes in reservations throughout the region."
"Afterward his expiry in September 1855 Chief Buffalo was honored by federal officials by existence buried in a tomb constructed at government expense at La Pointe."
"2 busts in the U.South. Capitol in Washington, D.C., were long idea to be of Chief Buffalo of La Pointe, however recent inquiry has shown that they are more likely to exist of some other Chief Buffalo from Leech Lake, Minnesota. The busts were based on a clay model by the Italian sculptor Francis Vincenti, washed in the presence of the subject in February 1855. The appointment is what makes clear that the principal could not exist Chief Buffalo of La Pointe, since the chief was not in Washington at that time. The only Master Buffalo there and then was the main from Leech Lake, who came to negotiate the Treaty of Feb 22, 1855. For more information on the busts, see the U.S. Senate website at <http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/art/artifact/Sculpture_21_00002.htm#bi>."
"A thorough give-and-take of the problems of identifying the chief on whom the busts were modeled tin be establish at <https://chequamegonhistory.wordpress.com/2013/05/26/principal-buffalo-picture-search-introduction/>." -- "Chief Buffalo," Onigamiinsing Dibaajimowinan-Duluth's Stories, Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. Accessed 25 May 2018.
See also "Chief Buffalo'south Reservation," and . . .
"After signing the Treaty of 1854, under which he received his reservation, Chief Buffalo left his mark on a document describing the boundaries of the reservation, as shown in this document in the National Archives in Washington, D.C." -- "Chief Buffalo"
See also J. O. Holzhueter, "Chief Buffalo and Other Wisconsin-related Art in the National Capitol," Wisconsin Magazine of Art, 56:4 (1973), pp. 284-289.; Paul Negri, "The Treaty of La Pointe and the Chief Buffalo Grant," (unpublished MS., University of Minnesota, Duluth Library, n.d., E99 .C6 N44X).
8. The bands and local groups of individuals inside their respective areas.
ix. Well-nigh Deer River, Minnesota. See Map of the Leech Lake Indian Reservation.
10. He was performing what anthropologists phone call "brideservice." Cf., Ch. 24, "Courtship, Matrimony, and Living in with the In-Laws."
11. For more data run across Ch. 24, "Courtship, Spousal relationship, and Living in with the In-Laws."
12. Paul was thought to take likely been born on iv July 1900, and re-born in 1902. See footnote #3 in the "Introduction." Here he is talking virtually being born in 1902.
thirteen. Hunting and gathering.
14. At the "Leech-Mississippi Forks," a petty less than two-miles south of Brawl Club Lake, 1 can continue downwards the Mississippi River towards Deer River, Cohasset, and K Rapids/La Prairie, or go up the Mississippi to where it enters Lake Winnibigoshish on its eastward side. The 3rd River Flowage enters Lake Winnibigoshish beyond the lake from Winnibigoshish Dam, on its northwestern corner. Cf. Map of the Leech Lake Indian Reservation.
xv. For a discussion of summer-born vs. winter-born see Ch. 18, "Late-Fall-Winter Army camp," and Ch. 6, "Spring Motion to the Sugar Bush."
16. This is a sociological "ameliorate" rather than a physiological "better."
17. Subsequently a man dressed like this, with a watch concatenation, appears in a vision. Cf., Ch. 34, "Fireballs, and 'The Black Shadow Man.'"
18. Ki-chI-nó-dIn.
19. Cf., Ch. 25, "'Self-Houses,' Sweat Houses, and Bloodletting," Ch. 31, "Spiritual Doctoring, Tipi-Shaking, and Os-Swallowing Specialists," Ch. 32, "Medicine Men / Medicine Women," and Ch. 33, "Messengers and Unusual Events."
20. Whuaay and Wh^^h are expressions of great approving. They are often used to show support and adoration. xxxNOTE: Change this when Brian submits his transcriptions [ ^ ] is pronounced like the "u" in cut.
21. I.due east., knowledgeable in traditional Indian ways, including medicine.
22. Encounter Map of the Leech Lake Indian Reservation.
23. The former folks. Paul Buffalo carefully distinguishes between what he personally has done, and what others did. In this instance the adults would take the common salt from the salt pork barrels and work it into salt. At this point in time he was too young to help, thus he uses "they."
24. "Wealthy" ways living comfortably in terms of basic food, shelter, and a few pocket-sized applied cloth possessions such as a gun, some kettles, an axe, and the similar.
25. Unusual natural signs -- including dreams -- play a very of import role in Anishinabe cultures. See also Ch. 26, "Dreams and Visions," Ch. 33, "Messengers and Unusual Events," and Ch. 34, " Fireballs, and The Shadow Human."
26. Encounter Map of the Leech Lake Indian Reservation.
27. Generally traditional folks thought of relationships in terms of the kinship terms that they used to refer to one another rather than to the bodily biological relationships. The point of reference in trying to translate biological relationships into English will mostly be the Anishinabe linguistic term. Nevertheless, since the kinship systems vary considerably, this is often quite hard for not-Anishinabe speakers. Anishinabe peoples, for instance, usually clearly separate cross-cousins (mother's brother's children and father's sister'due south children) from parallel cousins (female parent's sister's children and father's blood brother'southward children). In the end, the nigh important factor is that they were related and that they commonly addressed each other by kinship terms rather than non-kinship terms. These kinship terms would be immediately understandable to all concerned.
28. The distance, walking, is about seven.half dozen miles.
29. If yous do non believe in signs, and so things happen and they come upon you unexpectedly. The belief is that i can anticipate what is going to happen by carefully observing the signs. Then, when what was foretold by signs actually happens, information technology is no surprise to y'all, and you are quite likely to exist prepared for it likewise as you can be.
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Source: https://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/Buffalo/PB01.html
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