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We are like sculptors, constantly carving out of others the image we long for, need, love or desire, often against reality, against their benefit, and always, in the end, a disappointment, because it does not fit them. ~ Anais Nin
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When I was a little girl our congregation had “work day” which meant that everyone had to rake leaves and pull weeds. My group got sent once to the Indian cemetery, since the local Lutherans (us) were responsible for its upkeep. I never bothered to look at the grave markers or let the weeping seep up into my carefree raking and leaf-pile jumping. Several years later, while driving home from a late night of last-minute Christmas shopping, my car died right in front of the cemetery. Luckily for us, an incredibly nice woman who lived right next to the cemetery let us use her phone, gave the kids hot cocoa, and put us at ease.
The Ojibway people—one of the three tribes of Anishinaabeg native peoples—lived in the Pine River watershed area at a place they called Shing-wa-kaus-king, the Place of Small Pine Trees. They had no way of knowing that one day this place would be nothing more than a cemetery filled with neglected simple grave markers bearing the words “Indian Child” and one larger one for Sarah Mirk-i-we, who would die in 1859 at the age of 110.
The cemetery is heavily shadowed with giant pine trees, a seven-foot white cross peels and blisters from exposure, and parasitic moss buries modest grave markers. Snow attempts to whitewash and forgive the neglect. Unraked leaves jut from beneath the snow’s surface like children’s hands reaching from the grave to a deaf and blind world.
Before the Ojibway took to the woods to hunt or to the river to fish, they prayed to their mother earth and father sun and fasted for days. They knew they had to kill to survive, but they also believed that what they were killing was family. When they killed, they apologized to the dead deer, the dead fish, the dead raccoon for taking its life, asking for forgiveness. If an Ojibway got sick, they believed that this was the result of a sin toward mother earth—carelessness or harm toward the creation.
What I learned in Sunday School: God created the heavens and the earth—and it was good. Honor your father and mother. Talk to Jesus regularly through your prayers about anything you care about. The Holy Spirit is like the wind, going wherever it pleases, even in us. The earth is ours, heaving and groaning under the fate of human sin, working its way always toward death. Go forth, be fruitful and multiply.
The Ojibway believed that everything, even the rocks and water, had a spirit; spirits were to be respected. Much of this respectful life of the Ojibway centered on their clan—an extended family. There were five major clans among the Ojibway, and it was forbidden to marry within the clan. The result was that each married couple had two very large families to rely on through the hard times and to support when times were good. Children were considered a gift; to be an Ojibway child was to live a carefree life. But their parents believed in setting an example. If they did not want their children to yell, for example, they did not yell. The result was well-behaved children. It was a culture of respect.
German Lutherans come from a strict and conservative background. As a young girl, I memorized the catechism and the creeds, the Lord’s prayer and the liturgy. I learned that children should be seen and not heard.
Each night during the winter, when the evil spirits were asleep and couldn’t overhear, a story was told around the fire. One of these tales was the story of Manabozho and the Maple Trees. Manabozho came to the Ojibway village one October day and found that the crops were weedy and neglected and there were no men, women or children to be found. Manabozho went to the woods and found them all lying under the maple trees sucking up the sugary maple sap that dripped from the trees. He was very displeased. So he poured water over the trees and the sap became diluted. It didn’t taste good anymore, with only one or two percent maple. He told the Ojibway that they now would have to tap into the trees, collect the sap, take it home and boil it—because everything must be worked for. The Ojibway children, from hearing this tale, learned how and when to make syrup, the dangers of addiction, and never to take from nature without expecting to work for it. They also learned how to become eloquent speakers and good listeners.
I know well the characters of Moses and Joseph and Abraham and Solomon and Jesus and Paul and John. The Christian Bible is a compilation of their stories. From the pulpit, the pastor preaches the meaning of these stories. We are listeners. There is no fire.
In 1848, German Lutheran missionaries came to the Place of Small Pine Trees. They named the place the Bethany Mission after the city in Palestine where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. They were going to show the Ojibway the real God; they could not have known what would happen.
Christian doctrine proclaims with unwaivering emphasis that the only way to God is through faith in Jesus Christ. It follows, then, that anyone who does not trust Christ will go to hell. Missionaries dedicate their lives to the great commission—bringing the gospel to every nation and keeping people out of hell.
Bringing Christianity to the Ojibway people meant a life of hardship and sacrifice for the missionaries. Rev. E. G. H. Meissler, one of the missionaries to the Ojibway, even lost his wife Johanna when she became deathly ill and a doctor was a 5-day trip away in Bay City. Her grave lies, too, in the Bethany Cemetery. Another missionary, Rev. Beirlein, wrote “Spelling and Reading in the Chippewas Language,” with the help of a translator, James Gruett. James Gruett was half French and half Indian.
I sit next to Jen for the entire semester. Jen’s hair is blue, her pants are hemmed in leopard fur, her homosexuality is blatant, and the chip on her shoulder is larger than any cross I could bear. She is amazed when she discovers that I am a Christian and asks why I don’t hate her. Christianity is meant to bring hope, I say, not judgment. I am sad.
The missionaries brought medicines; the Ojibway no longer had to apologize to Mother Earth to be healed. The missionaries brought books. Stories could be written down. The missionaries brought blankets and pots and spoons, and the Ojibway eventually quit working their own way out of their problems and relied on the church. Although Missionary Meissler may have seen some success at converting a few of these Ojibway, he didn’t have nearly the impact on them that the lumbering community did when they moved into the area in the early 19th century. Sadly, the new influx of people brought with them new diseases. These diseases killed about 1/3 of the Indian population. Along with death, they brought an insatiable desire for fur, which they traded with the natives for “firewater”—alcohol. Forgetting the Manabozho’s warnings of the maple tree, the Ojibway quit going to church and school and were willing to give anything for the booze that the white man brought.
I began with one glass of wine which, after an emotional episode, became four more. A Christian friend reprimanded me, and I was hurt by his judgment of my behavior. Jesus was called a drunkard because he spent time in the homes of some disreputable people. The sick need a doctor. I am often disreputable. I am always forgiven.
The Ojibway, for the first time in their history, became dependant on the Europeans, incurred debt, and ended up hunting for fur without the respect for the land that they had held sacred for so long. The land they occupied at Shing-wa-kaus-king eventually became the property of men who could pay the taxes owed, and the Ojibway leader—Chief Nowezeyck—signed a treaty. This treaty gave away the land on the Pine River, and the Ojibway—now called the Chippewa, an English derivation of Ojibway—moved to Isabella County to the reservation in 1859.
The family of four next door owns five vehicles. My brother and sister live two hours away by car and I see them on holidays. When I got divorced, my siblings did not call to see how I was doing. My mom and dad live one mile away, and I haven’t seen them for over a week. The woman in front of me in line at the grocery store has taken full advantage of the meat sale, her cart piled high with boneless, skinless chicken breasts, five-pound family packs of ground chuck, several packages of pork ribs. I head to the curb the evening before trash day and notice that my trash can contains three times the volume of my recycling bin. We tried to fix what was not broken. It is broken now.