Note: all original writing (presented here) is copyrighted by the Library of Congress to Mary Magoulick. It may be used only according to copyright law and by permission of the author.

Coming to Life

Native American Cultural Renewal in the Eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan and in Louise Erdrich's The Antelope Wife

Introduction

We are all, I suppose, at the most fundamental level what we imagine ourselves to be.

~ N. Scott Momaday, 1998 

Momaday was talking about Indians, about Native American Indians, that the worst that can befall us is to go unimagined. And today, we are talking about the imagination of tribal stories, and the power of tribal stories to heal. Stories that enlighten and relieve and relive. Stories that create as they’re being told. And stories that overturn the burdens of our human existence.

~ Gerald Vizenor, 1993  

In the study of folklore, we look at many manifestations of everyday human expression, but their shaping is all done by a single force: the interactive dynamics of living culture.

 ~ Barre Toelken, 1996 

In a stable society, composing a life is somewhat like throwing a pot or building a house in a traditional form: the materials are known, the hands move skillfully in tasks familiar from thousands of performances, the fit of the completed whole in the common life is understood. . . . Fluidity and discontinuity are central to the reality in which we live.

~ Mary Catherine Bateson, 1990 

A low wind rides, trembling in the stiff grass, unwinding and slowing my steps. The gravity tugs harder. Lead instinct. Grave soul. And then I break into a short run, startled. What if? What if, just as sure as we are pulled toward earth and destined to go down into it at last, we are also at the same rate pulled toward heaven?

No wonder we are stretched top to bottom from both ends of our being. No wonder the soul can’t decide where to wedge itself.

                                                         ~Louise Erdrich, 1998 (The Antelope Wife) 

Expressions of cultural resurgence among the Ojibwe in the Eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan resonate with the work of Turtle Mountain Chippewa poet and novelist Louise Erdrich. Both the narratives from the U. P. community where I worked and Erdrich’s novel The Antelope Wife, demonstrate how Native Americans in these communities seek to reconcile identities and make sense of their world during a process of cultural renewal. I offer contextual details drawn from the community where I did fieldwork to deepen textual analysis of both the field-collected narratives and Erdrich’s literary narrative. The narratives reveal that Nishnaabeg today are embracing, enacting, and shaping their identity in positive and meaningful ways. They are coming to life still and again, with good intentions and results, with vibrant artistic expressions, as did their ancestors, as do we all.

 As is true throughout Ojibwe and Native American cultures generally, people in the Eastern Upper Peninsula (the U. P.) are overcoming centuries of oppression and attempted assimilation to reclaim their cultural heritage, and to build an ethnicity that shapes identity effectively, practically, emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually. Culture is evident here as a dynamic process that communicates values and worldview, provides resources for living, and involves elaborate symbol making. This dissertation finds inspiration in and encourages the intersection of several academic disciplines: folklore, anthropology, Native American literature, and mythology. Anthropologists and folklorists of previous generations sometimes lamented that an age of high technology and global capitalism would result in the demise of “traditional” cultures. Today, we more often consider culture and tradition as fluid and dynamic resources which interact with (shaping as much as being shaped by) the modern world, rather than being overrun or determined by it.

Cultural persistence and regeneration reflected in narratives reveal how people ascribe meaning to their experiences. Narratives play a role in stimulating cultural growth or renewal while cultural renewal stimulates narratives. Such reciprocity reveals that neither narratives nor culture remains fixed. Neither determines the other, since both are processes as creative and mutable as life itself. The very concepts of culture, identity, tradition, and worldview emerge through the narratives and discussions of them, as fluid, dynamic, and ephemeral. Examining the process and results of such reciprocal phenomena will offer insight into a particular culture and the processes of culture, worldview, and narratives more generally.

Throughout the dissertation I present the words of consultants from the field whenever possible as the center of this ethnography. They provide the voices and explanations to flesh out “context”– complex systems of interrelationships – to help understand and appreciate the practice and discourse of their lives. Scholarship is a process involving dialogue with previous scholars and their theories. So I use the appropriate scholarship to help contextualize and frame much of my analysis. But scholars must also find inspiration in particular, creative, original data. In this case, both fieldwork and literature provide the heart of the dissertation – as the symbolic stories of some particular ways of coming to life and ways of expressing that journey.

Erdrich’s literary narrative The Antelope Wife symbolizes the processes of life and culture, illustrating the same process of cultural renewal as was expressed in the narratives told to me by consultants. As a story of the origin of contemporary Ojibwe cosmology or worldview, Erdrich’s novel The Antelope Wife is a story that is mythical in scope, and in fact works as a myth of the renaissance of Ojibwe culture. It is a richly symbolic, longer, perhaps more artful, example of the type of cultural expressions that I collected. I analyze The Antelope Wife according to insights gained through my fieldwork experience. The field-collected narratives help illuminate the literary narrative. Overall the dissertation interweaves folklore and literature to show the richness, impact, and purpose of each in human life. These various narrative forms enrich each other in dialectical analysis. Hence my chapters alternate between folk and literary narrative discussions.

Storytellers and narratives

Portrait of the Community

I conducted interviews with various residents of the Eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan during the spring and summer of 1996. These interviews represent the culmination of two years of fieldwork during which I taught at a tribal college on a reservation, lived near another reservation in the region, and took Ojibwe language classes. In the community where I worked I interacted with many people who helped shape my experience and knowledge of the culture. Yet most of the specific words and narratives to be analyzed here came from a small cross section of the community. I taped interviews with seven individuals (and sometimes some of their family members), ranging in age from 14 to 60. Some were members of the Sault Sainte Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Other were members of tribes from other regions of the state or Canada. But all were living and working in the Eastern Upper Peninsula. I offer brief portraits of these individuals in order to establish a sense of the community more generally. Pseudonyms are used according to consultant wishes.

JOHN CAPPA:  John Cappa is a very dynamic speaker, who needed little to no prompting during the interview process. He had a clear vision of what he wanted to communicate, and did so symbolically. John was in his mid-forties at the time of the interviews. He was the primary narrator from whom I collected discrete narratives and is from a very traditional background – an Ojibwe reserve in Canada (Manitoulin Island). John grew up a poor migrant worker in a large family (the youngest of 14 children). He spoke only Ojibwe until he went to Catholic school when he was five. He moved to the United States to attend high school (a member of his family was there). He has traveled and lived in various places in Michigan and during an army tour also lived overseas. His Associate’s Degree and special training and certification to teach Ojibwe language have earned him various positions teaching language, culture and history around the region. He has also served (mostly informally) as a spiritual leader in the community. He is a recovering alcoholic. He has two children from a previous marriage.

 

LARRY KING: Larry King, a student at Bay Mills Community College who lived mostly on the street as an alcoholic for almost fifty years, found his participation in the tribal college to be truly life-changing. Larry is from the Traverse City region of Michigan (where there are several tribal communities of both Ojibwe and Ottawa Native people). He was 60 years old at the time of our interview. He explains during the interview how he spent most of his life in White institutions (from boarding school to reform school to the military to jail). During rehabilitation he found himself attracted by Native spirituality and committed to being sober. He was still struggling with the twelve steps of reform when I knew him. He went to BMCC as part of his rehabilitation process (which was not uncommon). While there, he lived in the students dorms, did well in classes, worked as a janitor at he school, and found himself  popular among the students. He was even nominated and ran for student council president. Larry considers his problems a result of not having anyone who could care for him when he was young. His parents were out of the picture, so he lived with his grandparents, who couldn’t handle him when he started acting up as a young boy. Yet he remembers his grandparents fondly, and recognizes that they maintained some traditional values. Growing up, he heard enough Ojibwe language that he now speaks and can understand a little.

 

LINDA OBERLE: Linda was forty at the time of our interview. She was born in Detroit, but her family returned to the U. P. (Where her parents were from), when she was 11. She was a very successful student at BMCC and has since gone on to complete a Bachelor’s Degree and is working on an MSW now. She plans to work as a counselor, and has already spent years working with Native people dealing with addiction. She herself was an alcoholic for many years, but has stayed sober and productive for even longer. She attributes some of her success at sobriety to focusing on her Native identity. Linda is a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, as is the father of her young son of whom she is very proud. Linda spent 14 years serving in the army, much of that time in Berlin, Germany. She maintains strong ties with her relatives and friends in the Native community today. She began focusing on her Native identity relatively recently, but is committed to raising her son with a sense of his Native heritage.

 

OGIMAKWE: Ogimakwe was in her mid-thirties at the time of our interview. She is half Ojibwe (through her mother). Her father was Italian. She lived on the Bay Mills reservation, near the tribal college with her 14-year-old son Jake and her foster son Jimmy (who was about 18). She grew up on Shunk Road, which was where most Native people lived in Sault Ste. Marie. It is now the site of the reservation (which the tribe acquired after gaining federal recognition in the 1970’s). Ogimakwe remembers the Shunk Road community as being very strong, friendly, and poor. Many people had dirt floors, no electricity, and poor heating. The city put no resources into that area, which was on the outskirts of town. Unofficially, they had their own church and school (where no one else wanted to go). She finds it ironic that in the past people resented being segregated this way, and now the community has built their own charter school (primarily for Native students), in precisely the same spot. She remembers her relatives and the community practicing some few aspects of being Native (like gathering berries, making teas, telling some stories, having a sense of humor, being a strong community, and occasionally the elders would gather and maybe speak the language). She became a nurse’s aide and spent many years working in Detroit. After her father died, she felt drawn to her home, and returned. During a class she took at the local university (Lake Superior State University), she met another Native woman who became her spiritual mentor. She now considers her Native heritage central to her identity and is raising her son and living her live according to that vision. She attended Bay Mills Community College, is learning the language, attends powwows, and is an active member of the community.

 

SHARON: Sharon, also in her mid-forties, is from California, and moved to Michigan in order to attend BMCC. She was an extremely active student while at BMCC, an energetic leader in the community, helping organize powwows and many other events. She has an interest in tribal administration and BMCC was one of the only colleges in the country to offer such a major. Although Sharon is half non-Native and grew up mostly in the white world of Northern California, she now considers herself  “all Indian.” She and her husband Bruce (who has some small amount of Cherokee blood) have focused upon their Native American identity, which has become a central factor in their lives, evidenced by their time at BMCC, their careers, vacations, and attitudes. Only one of Sharon’s three children shares this perspective, though all have the same amount of Indian blood (their father was part Mayan). Her youngest child, whom she evidently influenced once she herself found that “good path,” is the one who focuses on his Native identity, like her. Her uniquely Choctaw/Cherokee identity, as expressed in her interview, is based partly upon unique elements of the origin myths she knows of, the trail of tears history, and family visits to Oklahoma as she grew up. She recognizes little from material culture or oral lore which is unique to her family and / or which has been maintained by them. Her uncles knew a few stories; her grandmother was a healer and midwife (though she couldn’t practice due to alcoholism for much of her life); and there were occasional festivals or “singings” her family attended in Oklahoma. She feels the cultural lapse was due to two things, both stemming from the dominant Anglo culture – oppression (boarding school in her mother’s case), and alcoholism (which affected her grandmother and her non-Native father).

 

TED HOLAPPA: Ted is active in tribal leadership in the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe, though he is a member of the Keewenaw Bay community. Ted is a friend from language classes. He is probably the most dedicated language student I’ve known in the U. P. He sees it as his major life goal to learn Ojibwe, because he thinks that is the way to really know something important about the culture. He is well-educated, thoughtful and articulate, and has spent time working for Indian rights in many communities in Michigan and Washington D.C. He has a gentle, good sense of humor. He works for the Sault Tribe health services in St. Ignace. His sister’s husband is the traditional tribal healer from Minnesota whom the Sault Tribe employs to treat Native people. Ted has a daughter (who is in her twenties), and a recent grandchild. His whole family lives near him, and he is committed to maintaining strong family ties, which he believes is a central part of traditional Native life. He often works as the Master of Ceremonies at powwows and other ceremonies in the region.

 

WABAGONI: She is also in her mid-forties, originally from a very traditional Cree family in Northern Quebec. Her very large family followed trap lines in the winter, and banded in larger fishing camps in the summer, following a very traditional pattern. Her father and uncles made snowshoes; her mother and sister made moccasins. They ate food they hunted and gathered. Her father sold his furs for the small amount of money they earned each year. When she was eight, government officials came and required the family to send two of their children to boarding school in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Wabagoni and her younger brother were sent (though her mother and father didn’t want them to go). Wabagoni resisted the attempts at assimilation while in school, and thus retained her language (Cree). Most of her family still lives in Northern Quebec. Because she knows many traditional skills (such as making moccasins and using herbs for healing), she is valued as a cultural leader in the community. She worked at Bawating School (the Sault Tribe’s charter school) as a “cultural advisor.” She is married with two children, though her family lived downstate in Mount Pleasant, and visited most weekends. Since I left the Sault, she moved to be with her family, and now works as a legal aide for the Saginaw Band of Chippewa Indians based in Mount Pleasant. She was actively trying to learn Ojibwe language during the time I knew her.

 

This group of consultants is representative of the larger community in the U. P., which includes a diversity of Native people. The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians has over 8,000 members (not all living in the U. P.). The Bay Mills Tribe is considerably smaller. Both tribes run casino / resorts which are very lucrative (generating hundreds of millions of dollars per year for the Sault Tribe). The money is re-invested and held in trust by the tribe, and is not distributed to individual tribal members. The Sault Tribe’s casino and operation are larger, probably because they are located more conveniently just off a major interstate highway (I-75). Bay Mills is, however, in a more scenic location, and is trying to capitalize on that (they’ve built their new casino / resort on part of the reservation with a nice view of Whitefish Bay).

The tribes provide health services to all members, including modern health centers in both communities, dental services, nutritionists, and even a traditional healer employed by the Sault Tribe. Native people can easily find jobs at the casinos, hotels, schools, or tribal administration (though most of these are service-related jobs). Many people send their children to the Bawating Charter School (any child can attend), which emphasizes a Native-centered curriculum. There are language and culture camps, senior centers, and the tribal college located on the Bay Mills Ojibwe reservation just outside of Brimley (25 miles west of the Sault). Both tribes host a variety of powwow and spiritual celebrations (usually in June), which are homecoming events for out-of-town members. Many of the houses on both reservations are relatively newly built with H.U.D. money (people qualify because of employment opportunities). The Sault Tribe owns and operates many local businesses in the region (such as hotels and a neon sign business). Many people have returned to the region and are refashioning their lives and identities as Native Americans because of all these positive changes and resultant shifts in attitudes regarding Native Americans in the region and state.

Narratives

Most of the interviews I conducted were in narrative format – consultants told me their life stories. Within these general “life narratives,” some consultants performed discrete narratives: to be distinguished from more general narrative forms, as framed, keyed, performed speech events, verbal or written art. They are stories involving stylized language, characters, and a sequence of events that communicate a message artistically. They are adapted to a contemporary audience, as Elaine Jahner affirms as characteristic of stories: “Fortunately, the stories are not such fragile structures that they need the aid of scholars and interpreters to maintain their vitality. Their existence is a protean one, adapting to time and place . . . tales embody artistic and moral energies that direct the trajectory of change. In the tales we can perceive the people’s motivations and sources of psychological renewal, which lead to new ways of living” (1983, 11). Stories, at the center of this dissertation, remain a powerful source of cultural renewal, sharing, and understanding.

I have distinguished three genres of narratives among those I collected: traditional teaching narratives, affirmative humorous narratives, and personal experience narratives. Like any categorizations, these are neither absolute nor completely satisfactory. All the narratives share certain themes, elements, and structures, yet all are unique to their narrators and performance events. In many cases the narratives I collected resulted from the interview situation. Sometimes I heard similar narratives in “natural contexts” before recording them.^[1]

Discrete Narratives

Generally, narratives are defined as stories with a patterned sequence of events including a beginning, middle, and end, and told in particular situations for particular purposes. Henry Glassie summarizes: “Stories begin and end in conversations. . . . Stories are narratives artfully ordered to do the serious work of entertainment, pleasing their listeners in the present, then carrying them into the future with something to think about. . . . a story is a plot, surrounded by words, set in a situation, followed by functions” (1982, 39, 40). Considerations and definitions of narrative sometimes inspire intense debate over the use, meaning, and boundaries of the term.

Many scholars problematize the notion of narrative in terms of its artfulness, social setting, and relation to history. For instance, Paul Ricoeur discusses the implications of the reciprocity between narrativity and temporality (1980). Narrative and time are intricately intermingled, influencing each other continuously, he says, thus calling into question some attitudes about history. When narratives are rendered as texts, they are bounded and removed from their context, rendering them lifeless or limited.

Richard Bauman summarizes the importance of narratives as situated events and explains the distinction between literary and anthropologically based notions of stories and texts: “Literary theorists occasionally look outward from the texts toward the relationship between narratives and the events they recount, whereas anthropologists tend to look in the other direction, toward the relationship between narratives and the events in which they are performed” (1986, 3). Narration is thus a moment of a “mode of communication . . . like all human activity, [it] is situated, its form, meaning, and functions rooted in culturally defined scenes or events – bounded segments of the flow of behavior and experience that constitute meaningful contexts for action, interpretation, and evaluation” (1986, 3). Because of its situation as emergent and in flux, narrative is part of a performance event that should be understood according to local knowledge, terms, and contexts (Bauman 1986).