Bed of Nails

The war is over and we are preparing to move. The pre-war gray-green panel truck is nearly loaded and we will be leaving soon.


I am seven and am helping as much as I am allowed. I glance occasionally with concern at the partially water-filled glass bowl which is home to my silver dollar sized turtle. I feel, more than think, that someone will, or should, make a decision about my turtle.


Now it is very nearly time to leave and I carry the bowl to the old panel truck where my father is standing. "What should I do with the turtle?" I ask.


"Put it in the truck." my father says.


I see no place in the loaded truck for a bowl with a turtle in it. "The bowl will spill." I say.


"Empty the bowl and put it in the truck." my father tells me.


I do as I am told, but hold my turtle, still safe, in my hands. Now,somewhat fearfully, I again ask my father what I should do with my turtle


"Put it there." he points.


I look 'there.' Rusty nails. An open can of rusty nails collected to finish our new home. The nails are unfriendly, uncaring, lifeless. As I put my turtle on those nails, I know he will never see his home again.

Hopewell System

Most tribal peoples of Canada and the United States don't speak of the Hopewell System, but from Chippewa and Ojibwa of the north to the Choctaw and Chickasaw of the south a feeling comes up. Its a feeling like, perhaps a stream of arterial blood or a stream of energy connecting them. There are Ojibwa who speak a language that can speak of that flow of wise energy. Its a language which caries more knowledge than many realize. Navajo, Cree, and Inuit speak powerful languages and they know the waters too. The Ojibwa have long known the water ways.


When a language dies much dies with it, but not all. There are other symbols and memories. When I was young perhaps 300,000 could speak the language known to the Ojibwa, now there are not that many. There are still those who can speak more than one sentence and those who can remember a whole chant without an error. The language has guardians and supporters.


These days the gene-pool of the Cherokee may be larger and spread more widely than the Ojibwa line. Who can tell the blood?


In a dream I have been told that we have a few drops of the blood of the sea-going Miigis, but that we ate the wrong turtle. I don't know what the dream means, suspect that it may speak of a lost power that is not completely lost.


My home is far from the great rivers and far from the Great Lakes, but I have heard of an island that has more than a hundred lakes on it! Many of those lakes have islands on them! I reminds me of something I saw on the paper on a can of milk. This same island may be largest island on fresh water. On that island, I hear, are those who ave some memory of thriving connections among many Indian people going back and back and far. They eat Haw berries and remember things. Some teach. They remember the old word for copper.


Some of the people who come to that island, I hear, know strange names like Anishiwaabe, Sheguiada, Shehewaning, and Miigis too. I may have been drunk in LA when someone told me.


If you know more please tell. If I have spoken a lie please tell me. I try to give my best understanding.