the soft grass, rested my head on my rolled-up sleeping bag and shut my eyes. With the warmth of the sun on my face I began to enjoy my weekend.
‘If you need to wash I am going to the lake.’
A deep voice woke me from my blissful slumber. I opened my eyes to the vision of a large bare-chested Indian towering over me holding a towel and a bar of soap. Without his wolf T-shirt it took me a few moments of sleepy confusion to recognise the man casting a long shadow across my body. He turned and walked away. I gathered the pathetic piece of material that had been sold to me as a quick-dry camping towel and jogged to catch up.
‘My name’s Tom.’
‘John,’ he replied. I had half expected him to be called Jumping Salmon or Silver Wolf.
I followed him in silence along a dusty tree-lined track to a small beach on the reedy, marshy banks of the lake. Our arrival was announced by a pair of ducks that burst out of a cluster of wild rice and scrambled across the surface of the water before taking off and flying into the distance. John took off his jeans, his white trainers and untied his ponytail. Standing naked, his long dark hair, which had been pulled in a smooth dome over his head, fell around his thick neck and muscular back like a curtain. He waded into the water and, after muttering some form of blessing, quietly sank his large frame beneath the surface, sending out no more than a few soft ripples. I peeled off my clammy Lycra, got out of my whiffy T-shirt and, feeling shamefully naked, quickly scuttled into the shallows. We both swam a little and the cool water seemed to wash away not only the dust and sweat of the last week’s cycling, but also my tiredness and uncertainty. In an attempt to break the silence and show off the knowledge I had recently gained in the museum, I asked, ‘What does the word “ojibwa” mean?’
‘In the language of Ojibwa it means to pucker.’
John went on to tell me that the Ojibwa were given their name for the unique shape of their footwear, a buckskin moccasin whose edges ‘puckered up’ when sewn together. While I was wondering where I might be able to get my hands on a pair of these shoes, he went on with a second, more disturbing theory.
‘There are those who believe it originated from a torturing technique used by the Ojibwa warriors who roasted their captives over fires until their skin puckered up under the extreme heat. Catch!’
John tossed me the soap and disappeared beneath the surface.
We walked back to the sacred ground in silence until the stillness of the afternoon gradually filled with the happy noise of the camp: the hammering of tent pegs, the chopping of wood, the calls of children playing. We climbed the last small hill and I looked out across the scene before me. The conical forms of traditional wigwams as tall as trees, children chasing each other through the encampment, men and women admiring each other’s feathered headdresses, elders surrounded by eager listeners, a makeshift arena of planks and branches, and a busy group of women gathered around huge metal pots which hung above small fires filling the warm evening air with tidy plumes of smoke. I had to try and ignore the shiny chrome bumpers on the pick-up trucks, the unnatural forms of garish nylon tents, the baseball caps and the jeans, but looking out it was a scene from a childhood dream. I was looking at a real Indian camp and I was relieved that the fires being carefully tended and loaded with chopped wood were not puckering up captives. Instead they were heating cauldrons of bubbling chillied beef and wild rice.
Wild rice, also known as manoomin, which translates as the ‘good berry’ in Ojibwa, has played a major role in the lives of Ojibwa people for thousands of years. According to Ojibwa oral tradition, they were instructed to find the place where ‘the food grows on the water’ during their long migration from the east coast. This led them to the shores of the Great Lakes, where flowing fields of manoomin were found in abundance. Seen as a gift from the Creator, manoomin became a healthy staple in the Ojibwa diet. When harvested correctly, wild rice could be stored for long periods of time to be available when other foods were not. Besides being basic to the traditional diet, manoomin also developed cultural and spiritual resonance and remains an important element in many feasts and ceremonies today.
‘The Sagamok Ojibwa tribal council welcomes all nations to the annual traditional pow-wow. Please join us for the opening feast. The grand entry will begin at seven,’ screeched an announcement through the unsophisticated tannoy system. This triggered a scramble as people poured out of tents and rushed towards the small fires of the makeshift kitchen. Trestle tables laden with food were attacked by a growing swarm of women and children helping themselves to the food on offer. Paper plates were piled high with wild rice and deep ladles of steaming chilli on top of a golden hunk of Indian taco, a skillet-fried flat bread which was a staple among many of the Great Lakes tribes and given the name bannock bread by Scottish fur traders. It wasn’t the feast of plump beaver’s tail and boiling moose nose I had been hoping for, but I was hungry, I was happy and I was excited to be here at my first Native American pow-wow.
In the jargon-filled world of my previous existence in advertising, a pow-wow was an informal term for another dreary meeting, but its origins are deeply rooted in the Native American culture. Deriving from the Algonquin term ‘pau-wau’, which referred to a gathering of medicine men and spiritual leaders, it was anglicised to ‘pow-wow’ by the first European settlers. However, for the numerous plains tribes of North America and Canada, the Blackfoot, the Sioux, the Cheyenne and the Ojibwa, pow-wows were an important opportunity to gather together, trade, dance, celebrate and continue their culture, and eat.
Today the pow-wow circuit is in good shape and throughout the summer months traditional and competition pow-wows are held all over the continent. Competition pow-wows provide an opportunity for dancers, drummers and singers to perform for prestigious awards and big prize money. But the pow-wow circuit has not always been so healthy. Unsatisfied that starvation, land clearance and the introduction of western epidemics such as smallpox had done enough to decimate the indigenous tribes of the Americas, the invading white man, in all his wisdom, decided to prohibit the gathering of more than five native men in any one place at any one time. Afraid that any such meeting would lead to some kind of uprising, the American and Canadian governments imposed the Potlatch Laws of 1851 and 1857, which all but ended the traditional ceremonies that were vital to the survival of Native American culture, and saw the beginning of a generation of cultural prohibition. Clandestine pow-wows still took place but it wasn’t until 1934 in the USA and 1951 in Canada that the respective governments were satisfied that Native American culture had been sufficiently weakened to no longer be a threat, and the Potlatch Laws were repealed.
I perched on a comfortable log on the edge of the arena, happily digesting my wild rice, chilli and Indian taco, as the dull thud of a large drum resonated in the air. The master of ceremonies announced the opening of the pow-wow across the tannoy system that crackled and squeaked from huge conical speakers hung in the trees. It was time for the ‘grand entry’, and the group of men seated around the large circular drum in the centre of the arena began to accompany the melodic beat with ululating tribal wailing.
The eerie noise grew in intensity, filling the sacred ground, and the crowd of about a hundred men, women and children seated around the makeshift arena took to their feet. In the falling dusk an opening prayer of single syllables was offered in Ojibwa, and those not wearing eagle feathers were asked to remove their head gear. My malodorous Boston Red Sox baseball cap had to come off. A line of dancers entered the sacred circle, led by elders and veterans proudly bearing flags and staffs: the Stars and Stripes, the Union Jack, the Canadian flag, signs of respect for Ojibwa braves who served their countries in Vietnam and the two world wars (where Canadian soldiers fought under the British flag). They were followed by the black, yellow, white and red inter-tribal Native flag, and then the mystical-looking eagle staffs adorned with feathers, eagle skulls and animal pelts, which represented a deeper allegiance, unknown to me.
Behind the elders came an energetic
