Read Online Books & Islands In Ojibwe Country by Louise Erdrich - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Louise Erdrich
Ads: Link
being forced from their lands and educated by force, they fought in both World Wars. One of Tobasonakwutâs uncles, a soldier, came home to Big Island much affected by the fighting. He was silent,withdrawn, and stayed away from his family. Then his little son, a small boy named Wabijiis, came down with an unusual fever.
Such was the terror of disease, at the time, that it was decided that once the boy died the village would break up and the people disperse to Seamo Bay and Niiyaawaangashing. The little boyâs grave was dug with paddlesâthe people wanted to bury him the old way and not use metal. A prayer flag was erected near. The little boy Wabijiis was the last person buried on Big Island, and his grave and all that remains of the village is now grown over with young trees.
Nameh
All of a sudden between our boat and the fringed woods a great fish vaults up into the air. Iâve seen muskies. I walk around a Minneapolis lake of which signs warn MUSKELUNGE ARE IN THESE WATERS . Once, I saw an Uptown Minneapolis type, dressed in tight black jeans and tight black T, wearing a suit jacket, fishing in a very cool way. Cool until he hooked a vast muskie. His screams echoed along the sedate bike paths and the fish he dragged forth was soon surrounded by Rollerbladers, joggers, and awestruck pink- and blue-haired teens. The fish I just saw was not a muskie. It was even bigger. Tobasonakwut sees it from the corner of his eye and slows the boat down.
âAsema,â he says, and puts the tobacco in the water. That fish was the nameh. The sturgeon. Tobasonakwut is happy and moved to see it because, he says, âThey rarely show themselves like that.â
Once again, Iâm sure it is the baby. The sturgeon seemed to take flight above the water, rising in a pale thrust and falling on its back. The sturgeon is a living relic of life before the age of the dinosaurs, and to see one is to obtain a glimpse of life 200 million years ago. Iâve never seen one of these fish in the wild before, much less grown large. Iâve only seen tiny, fish hatchery, Pallid Sturgeon that a relative of mine who works for the North Dakota Department of Natural Resources was raising to stock the Missouri River. Nameh, Acipenser fulvescens Rafinesque, the Lake Sturgeon, is long-lived and can grow to more than eight feet. The Lake of the Woods record fish was a lake sturgeon weighing 238 pounds. Tobasonakwut says they can grow over twice that large. Males live into their forties. Female sturgeon can live over one hundred years, but they only spawn every four years, and not until they are in their twenties.
The sturgeon up here on Lake of the Woods were the buffalo of the Ojibwe. Greed and overfishing by non-Indians caused their population to crash around the turn of the nineteenth century, when, along with the Great Lakes, Lake of the Woods became one of the worldâs principal suppliers of caviar. The sturgeon were indiscriminately taken by the non-Indian fisheries for their roe, much as the buffalo hunters took only the buffalo tongues. They werestacked like cordwood all along the lake and often left to rot. An agonizing sight for the Ojibwe, who revere the sturgeon and who knew its secrets.
Long before fish-farming, the Ojibwe had traditional âsturgeon gardens,â shallow and protected parts of the lake where they mixed eggs and sperm and protected the baby sturgeon from predators. The eggs and sperm were mixed together with an eagle feather in an act both sacred and ordinary. These days, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and tribal communities raise sturgeon. A conservation program begun ninety-nine years ago, in Lake Winnebago near Shawano, Wisconsin, has provided the best example and the best hope. Wisconsin has tightly restricted sturgeon fishing since 1903, and Lake Winnebago now has the only large, self-sustaining sturgeon population in the world. A long-term program there may provide stocks that
Such was the terror of disease, at the time, that it was decided that once the boy died the village would break up and the people disperse to Seamo Bay and Niiyaawaangashing. The little boyâs grave was dug with paddlesâthe people wanted to bury him the old way and not use metal. A prayer flag was erected near. The little boy Wabijiis was the last person buried on Big Island, and his grave and all that remains of the village is now grown over with young trees.
Nameh
All of a sudden between our boat and the fringed woods a great fish vaults up into the air. Iâve seen muskies. I walk around a Minneapolis lake of which signs warn MUSKELUNGE ARE IN THESE WATERS . Once, I saw an Uptown Minneapolis type, dressed in tight black jeans and tight black T, wearing a suit jacket, fishing in a very cool way. Cool until he hooked a vast muskie. His screams echoed along the sedate bike paths and the fish he dragged forth was soon surrounded by Rollerbladers, joggers, and awestruck pink- and blue-haired teens. The fish I just saw was not a muskie. It was even bigger. Tobasonakwut sees it from the corner of his eye and slows the boat down.
âAsema,â he says, and puts the tobacco in the water. That fish was the nameh. The sturgeon. Tobasonakwut is happy and moved to see it because, he says, âThey rarely show themselves like that.â
Once again, Iâm sure it is the baby. The sturgeon seemed to take flight above the water, rising in a pale thrust and falling on its back. The sturgeon is a living relic of life before the age of the dinosaurs, and to see one is to obtain a glimpse of life 200 million years ago. Iâve never seen one of these fish in the wild before, much less grown large. Iâve only seen tiny, fish hatchery, Pallid Sturgeon that a relative of mine who works for the North Dakota Department of Natural Resources was raising to stock the Missouri River. Nameh, Acipenser fulvescens Rafinesque, the Lake Sturgeon, is long-lived and can grow to more than eight feet. The Lake of the Woods record fish was a lake sturgeon weighing 238 pounds. Tobasonakwut says they can grow over twice that large. Males live into their forties. Female sturgeon can live over one hundred years, but they only spawn every four years, and not until they are in their twenties.
The sturgeon up here on Lake of the Woods were the buffalo of the Ojibwe. Greed and overfishing by non-Indians caused their population to crash around the turn of the nineteenth century, when, along with the Great Lakes, Lake of the Woods became one of the worldâs principal suppliers of caviar. The sturgeon were indiscriminately taken by the non-Indian fisheries for their roe, much as the buffalo hunters took only the buffalo tongues. They werestacked like cordwood all along the lake and often left to rot. An agonizing sight for the Ojibwe, who revere the sturgeon and who knew its secrets.
Long before fish-farming, the Ojibwe had traditional âsturgeon gardens,â shallow and protected parts of the lake where they mixed eggs and sperm and protected the baby sturgeon from predators. The eggs and sperm were mixed together with an eagle feather in an act both sacred and ordinary. These days, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and tribal communities raise sturgeon. A conservation program begun ninety-nine years ago, in Lake Winnebago near Shawano, Wisconsin, has provided the best example and the best hope. Wisconsin has tightly restricted sturgeon fishing since 1903, and Lake Winnebago now has the only large, self-sustaining sturgeon population in the world. A long-term program there may provide stocks that
Similar Books
