Motherhood


Is it coincidental this Mothers Day weekend that there are also babes in the woodlands and wetlands of northern Minnesota? Whether it is or not, my experiences living in the woods this time of the year, awakens the realization within me that the female has within her an instinctive urge that I may never fully realize. And although I may never fully realize it, it is nonetheless as much a part of our being here as any other instinctive drive within the human and animal psyche.

This realization never fails to be forthcoming when I come upon a birds nest and the efforts of the hen to shield, protect, and defend her eggs or young which result in an almost sacrificial act. In some cases it is this act of Motherhood which is manifested in innumerable acts for our being here.

I often use Anishinaubae Ojibwe names and stories to clarify my essays but a greater purpose for referencing Ojibwe stories is that I see some hope for mankind in embracing the traditional Anishinaubaek attitude towards Mother Earth. Their beliefs that all life forms share the earth equally seems a key element in living sustainably on the planet and showing respect towards those other life forms that we share the planet with.

There are good books available about the Ojibwe people but many are written by white men or mixed blood people. I have learned much from these books sincerely authored by people like William Whipple Warren, Frances Densmore, and Johann Kohl but a writer whom has enabled me to understand the world of the Ojibwe better than any is Basil Johnston, an Anishinaubae scholar from Cape Crocker Indian Reserve in Ontario and who has written about a dozen books about the Anishinaubaek creation stories, spirit world, and language.

In Johnston’s book, “The Manitous,” he tells a creation story where Kitchi-Manitou (the Great Mystery) had created all the plants and animals in the world in the fulfillment of a vision. This world had become flooded and apparently all life was coming to an end. Clinging to flotsam on the surface was a myriad of animals. While struggling to stay afloat, they witnessed new life beginning in the sky. Geeshigo Quae (Sky Woman) was “espoused” to a Manitou and was about to give birth.

The creatures afloat on the surface of earth, in an act of unselfishness, set aside their concerns and asked the great turtle to offer his back as a place of refuge for Geezhigo Quae and invited her down. When settling upon the shell of the turtle, she asked for some soil. Many animals attempted to dive into the depths for soil but none but the lowly muskrat was able to dive deep enough and retrieve a paw full of soil of which Sky Woman thinly spread around the outside edge of the turtle shell and then “breathed the breath of life, growth, and abundance into the soil and infused into the soil and earth the attributes of womanhood and motherhood, that of giving life, nourishment, shelter, instruction, and inspiration for the heart, mind, and spirit.” It was after she had done this that she gave birth to twins whose descendents took the name Anishinaubaek.

This island continued to grow and became Turtle Island. It was then that Kitchi Manitou and Sky Woman gave this land to the first born native peoples under the condition that they live respectfully in joint tenancy with all other life forms on Turtle Island.

I continue to be impressed by the unmitigated love and depths that nursing mothers will go to in order to insure the lives of their young. These singular acts of courage are witnessed on an almost daily event. I see it dozens of time by the broken wing acts by birds trying to lead me after them rather then their babes. I see and hear it in a doe deer fleeing a short distance and snorting to call my attention to it rather than its fawn. I see it in my own wife’s unrelenting acts of caring and nurturing of our own kids. I have seen it in my own mother and this does not only apply to acts of protection but also nurturing and inspiration. I remember so clearly the stories my mother told me of when she was very young and newly married to my Father, she had relocated temporarily outside an army base in Alabama. She was a naive country girl and not exposed to the vile racism that was manifested in ‘Jim Crow’ in the south, in fact she had maybe only seen two or three black people prior to this. Her tales of the blatant and shocking racism, brutality, and segregation in the south outraged her and she instilled in my sister and I the same rancor against bigots. Still today, her spirit and consciousness of right and wrong visits my soul across the grim frontiers of death. My Mother lives within me. She is as much a part of me as my father.

Many of the ways of the world are still a mystery to me and maybe that’s not all bad. But it is an inspiration to see a small sunfish aggressively defending its shallow nest in the lake, the hen mallard doing a broken wing act, the deer calling me away from its new born fawn, or my mother teaching me to respect all people. I was reminded lately of the Ojibwe Seven Values; humility, truth, bravery, honesty, respect, love, and wisdom and the importance of these to future generations. I also remind myself of the Ojibwe belief that we inhabitants of the earth – human, other animals, and plants – are all “joint tenants’ of this earth and that survival depends on respect!

Makwa Returns

Late last Sunday night a kindred spirit visited me. Over the past four or five years, this same visitor has been coming around to steal a snack from my bird feeder or my garbage can and I have witnessed his annual growth into an impressive figure of a bear – Makwa. Two years ago, I took a night photo with a small 3.2 mega pixel camera that a friend enhanced. It revealed that Makwa has a hole in one ear and a scar running down his forehead onto his muzzle – apparently a battle scar with some other formidable boar.

Having seen many bears and been akin to bear hunts and witnessed many being weighed, I estimate Makwa to be around 400 lbs. which would put him well over that weight this autumn after a summer of fattening on berries, succulent greens, a fawn or two, and acorns and hazelnuts.

(The photos with this essay are of Makwa, taken with a game camera.)

What alerted me to Makwas presence was my dog barking at the noise made by Makwa knocking my bird feeder over. I got out of bed, knowing who was here and grabbed my flashlight and camera and stepped out the door. Makwa ignored me as he lay on the ground licking up the spilled sunflower seed. I tried taking some pictures with the camera to no avail as it was too dark. My next act was to yell at him to go as I knew his next act would be to go for my trash cans. Upon yelling “go bear!” he lumbered to his feet then made a lightning quick lunge at me. He stopped suddenly and rolled his head in gyrations and made another fast lunge. I knew, or hoped I knew, that these were bluff charges but none-the-less it was time to go inside! I loaded my side by side with two shotgun shells and fired over his head once upon which he ran off but I knew from past experience, he would soon be back. Last summer, a similar scenario unfolded and after Makwa had run off from a gun discharge, I decided it would be wise to remove my wife’s hummingbird feeders before he returned and crunched them into shambles. So, in my shorts with my revolver on my side and headlamp on, I went about the yard with a step ladder taking down the hummingbird feeders. While a top the ladder, I casually pointed my head towards the downed sunflower feeder with the headlamp on and there was Makwa, already back, laying on the ground and seemingly impervious to my collecting the hummer feeders.

I feel as Makwa and I know one another. I feel no threat from him, or at least no more than he feels from me and I do not feel that he is an outlaw as I am more an invader in his home than he is in mine.

In Anishinabae society, the people are divided into families or clans. The clans are represented by birds, mammals, fish, or reptiles. In William Whipple Warren’s book, “History of the Ojibway People,” he states that the largest clan is the bear clan, “…The Noka or Bear family are more numerous than any other clans of the Ojibways, forming fully one-sixth of the entire tribe.” Warren also states that “they are the acknowledged war chiefs and warriors of the tribe, and are the keepers of the war-pipe and war-club, and are often denominated the bulwarks of the tribe against its enemies.”

At the time of Warren’s writing (1852) he notes that the great chief of the Mississippi Band, Hole-in-the-Day the Younger was of the Bear Clan.

In Barbara Ford’s book, “Black Bear – The Spirit of the Wilderness,” she notes that all Indian people have a special and high regard for the black bear but the Cherokee people placed the bear in a special category. Ford writes that, “Long ago, according to Cherokee legend, all Cherokees in a certain town decided to live in the forest with the animals, so that they would always have enough to eat. Other Cherokees sent messengers to the forest to try and persuade them to come back, but when the messengers arrived they saw that the people already had long black hair like bears. The people refused to return. ‘Hereafter we shall be called bears and when you yourselves are hungry, come into the woods and call us and we shall come to give you our own flesh.’ One of the bear people said, ‘You need not be afraid to kill us, for we shall live always.”

“As the messengers were leaving they looked back, and saw a group of black bears going into the forest.”

Before I had eaten bear, I was told that it was fatty. This is wrong. Although the meat is surrounded by a thick layer of fat, the meat is lean and excellent in quality. The fat was considered a prize by cooking it down to a fine oil that was used as a dip like mayonnaise, used to treat muscle aches, applied to hair, baby oil, and considered superior to olive oil.

Of all the forest animals that I have encountered, the bear, with maybe the sole exception of the raven, has the most intelligence.

There are many amazing attributes to bears but the most amazing is hibernation. Although bears are not considered true hibernators, their respiratory and metabolic system slows down to a near stand still. Janine Benyus, in “Northwoods Wildlife” writes, “The cholesterol level of a hibernating bear is twice its normal level, and yet they don’t develop hardening of the arteries or gallstones. In fact, they produce a bile juice that seems to dissolve gallstones, even in the human patients it has been tested on! By the same token, the urea that would poison most mammals (including us) doesn’t harm bears [bears do not urinate while in hibernation.] They break it down and use it to build protein, an adaptation that helps them maintain organ and muscle tissue during the long sleep.”

Before entering hibernation, bears put on large amounts of weight. Biologists note that a bear can 11 to 18 pounds of food a day. Bears are great opportunists and know what is ripe and capitalize on these foods, especially berries, hazel nuts, and acorns. Bears will travel great distances to get to locations where these crops grow in abundance and cram as much of these foods down as possible. I know bear hunters that have put down foods such as prime rib and candied apples at baits to attract bears yet when the acorns are in season, most bears will turn their noses up at these seemingly attractive baits and focus on acorns. Bears know what foods have the highest nutritional value and it’s natural foods.

Bears also have the ability to pass on learned traits. When the common method of hunting bears began – hunting over bait – it seemed quite effective. Today, this is no longer the case. Bears have learned and sows have passed on this acquired, or learned, ability to not approach baits till after dark, when the hunter is gone and the coast is clear. I know of numerous instances where hunters have placed timing devices at there baits to find out what time the bears are coming in and almost without fail, the bears come in a half hour to hour after sunset. The bear just hangs out till its dark enough to cause the hunter to leave.

Prior to around the mid 1970’s, bears were considered vermin and could be killed with impunity and seeing a black bear was a rare sight. It was at this time that the bear was given big game status and makwa began to re-populate his home turf. Now makwa, although he is rather elusive and not seen with regularity, has made a comeback. Makwa – brother bear has reclaimed his rightful place in the forests of North America.