BIRTH OF THE SACRED TREE SOCIETY
of the Little Shell Pembina Anishinabe
The Crane Clan’s Story of how we came to Turtle Island and met the Sacred Tree longhouse of Megis.*
Crane had flown across the great waters for a very long time. While she was a strong bird, she was wishing for a place to rest for just a bit and she was hungry after all. Finally there in the distance she saw a small island that just suddenly appeared, as if the creator had heard her desire. She flew towards it.
Just as she was about to land on the island otter arrived at the opposite shore and was, like all otters, carrying something that he had found.
Crane asked Otter, “Do you have any food? I am hungry and have flown for a long time.
Otter thought about it, and being who he is, he laughed and said, “No food, but I have this little shell I found somewhere. Maybe if we open it up there is food inside to share."
So he put the little shell down between them and they begin to try to open it. First Crane pecked at it, nik-nik, nik-nik, with her long bill. She soon found that it was not going to open that easy.
Otter said, “let me try. I have great powers, you know."
Now as most of us know, Otters greatest power is to make anything he does fun somehow. So he begin to run with the little shell, tossing it in the air, catching it in his teeth and singing a song about how wonderful the food was going to be when he opened it.
Crane soon tired of his antics, and said to Otter, “Let me get on with the opening. Your foolishness is just wasting time. I AM HUNGRY!"
Then Crane tried to take the Little Shell back with her sharp beak. But, of course, being who he is Otter found this to be a great new game, a tug of war. So this went on for a long time. Crane was squawking and flapping her wings while otter laughed and jumped around, trying to get the Little Shell away from her. Crane was starting to lose some of her dignity with this clown and she was just about to peck him.
Suddenly this deep slow voice came from under them, “Who is making all that racquet on my back? It makes it really hard to get some rest. You should have more respect, you know!”
Otter was so startled that he let go of the Little Shell and this caused the Crane to loose her balance. She spit out the little shell into the air. Both watched as the Little Shell went up high into the sky, and then started to fall back between them.
As the Little Shell hit the Island a voice came from it saying, “Why are you fighting over my home? If you would only ask me I would have said come in."
The otter said, “Well….we probably would have but it looks awfully small for anybody to live in. Anyway we thought no body was home."
Otter winked at Crane. Crane caught his meaning and continued, “If we knew how to visit you we would have done that in a polite respectful way. (Her stomach was beginning to rumble its protest of hunger.) Uh….how would we get in?"
"Okay," said the voice. “I’ll tell you where the door is but first of all you must answer me a riddle."
They both agreed that would be fair, but Crane said, “Please just hurry!"
The little voice from the Shell said, “Who, no matter where he goes is always home?
“I think it is one of the Winds, right? Now how do we get to come in to visit you,” said otter in grinning expectation.
“Wrong,” said the Little Shell. "What’s your answer, Crane?”
“Uh….uh….I can’t think. May I have a little more time? Maybe if I had something to eat….Probably Coyote, right?” said Crane.
“No, no, you are both wrong," said the Little Shell. "It is the Turtle. You can not be a friend. You didn’t know the answer. You can’t visit in my home.”
Beneath them all, a sound like a great sigh of disgust came from the island. The strange deep voice that came from beneath their feet was stronger now, like the surf when there is a storm.
"Would you all mind? if you don’t start getting along and learn to live in balance in a QUIET respectful manner on my back, I will dive back beneath the sea and you will have no place for your foolishness. Get ALONG NOW or ELSE!” the island commanded.
To show them that this was what was true, a great mist, like the mist around a waterfall, descended on the Crane, the Otter and the Little Shell. Soon the mist became a blue fog. They could no longer see where they where at. They became fearful and huddled together on the back of the little island. They now understood that this was a sacred place and that they had acted in greed, disrespect and denial to each other (not forgoing the desire to eat at least one of their number). In their miserable blind state, cut off from the rest of the world, embroiled in a endless sea that offered no shelter, they soon held each other, crying. They knew that they were all they had and that they were the only ones who cared about who they were or even if they where.
When they where at the most miserable depths of this despair, a soft and gentle woman’s voice said, “My relations, do you wish to walk on your island free of the blue mist, under the sun, in balance and harmony again? Or do you wish to linger here for awhile longer in this fearful place where you cannot care for yourself or find your way about?”
The Otter, for once, listened to some reason not of his own quick and wise mind and swiftly offered up a prayer, “Thank you Great Grandmother, caregiver of us here. If you will bless us all with your gift I will offer some of the time I play for the people, to give them stories of how beautiful and wonderful you are to your children, I swear.…really.” To show his sincerity he showed his teeth in a wide smile, so she would see he hadn’t ate anybody at least.
Crane was not as quickly moved as Otter but she spoke to the voice also. “Grandmother, I will do anything you wish, just bring us back to the good place we came from. I will walk slowly and only take what is mine to eat when it offers itself for that purpose, I promise."
The Little Shell finally spoke. “I like traveling around with these folks on this Island, Grandmother, but I just don’t feel they have my best interests at heart. If they promise not to eat me and to respect me, I will invite them into my home and a great feast will be prepared for them.” (The little shell also thought to itself: "I am NOT their feast").
Then before them appeared a stirring in the mist. First they were very afraid, for it looked like a great bear coming towards them. As the bear shape walked towards them, they could see it beginning to glow with a golden light around itself. Soon the Crane and Otter were even more in awe, as the bear turned into a beautiful woman, strong and straight, despite her whitened hair. Her first words were as the growl of a bear, then they became sweeter and sweeter until it was like the song of a gentle maiden reflected over moonlight by still waters: “I do not require sacrifice more then one is willing to give, Little Shell. Your life is not threatened to be the feast in Crane’s stewpot by extending trust and respect in my name to these new inhabitants of this Turtle island."
And as she spoke the blue mists sparkled with little bits of the golden light around her. They could see, as through a gentle falling snow, that around them there was a great forest of magnificent ancient trees. The ancient trees were still partly enshrouded in the mist, but opened to the sun light shining through the high crown of leaves. There in the distance Crane and Otter could see a great Shell much like the little one they had been speaking with on Turtle Island, the island they had met on.
The Grandmother showed them a trail and told them that they must follow it where ever it went in order to get to the island, which is another story though. She also told them to be careful and stay on the path. If they didn’t, guards would be there to remind them. She then turned and returned to the blue mist, singing first in a beautiful voice that became more like a bear's. The last they saw of her she appeared like the shadow of a great golden bear growling in the blue mist
Many adventures later the two friends found the pole that stands before the door to the great shell house that they had seen so long ago together with the Bear Woman. At this pole there stood a great and fearsome Rattle Snake, a Warrior supple and strong, with the speed of lightening, and the gaze of stone. As they came closer he rose up and his tail begin to shake--tsh, tsh, tsh, tsh. Crane, in her alarm, came to her fighting pose. She stood very still, watching Rattle Snake with unblinking eyes, ready to peck and slash with her sharp bill.
As they watched, the Snake warrior grew as big as the pole beside him and he demanded, “Who are you?"
“We are Otter and Crane, Friends of Little Shell”, Otter offered.
“Ah yesss,” Rattle Snake softly hissed. “You may follow me, but first you must leave an offering here at the pole. Then be very respectful and take care in all you do for this is our sacred home. All might not be as you know or as you have seen before, but it is our harmony and balance, and I will keep the peace for my relations here.”
Otter was at a loss to offer anything to the pole for respect, for once he had nothing. He was playing with in his hands, but Crane then said “I might have a offering, if I still have some in my beak.” She very slowly lowered her head, all the time watching rattlesnake through narrowed, alert eyes. She carefully placed two little berries on the side of the pole where Rattler had shown them to offer.
As she did this a blue mist with gold sparkles grew from the berries. Otter, Crane and Rattler stepped back from the mist quickly and looked away, for this was sacred. Two elders were standing before them--a Grandmother who was wearing a bear hat with a Little Shell on the left side, and a Grandfather who was wearing an eagle’s tail feather with a Little Shell attached to the bottom of the quill. This hung tip down over his right ear.
The Grandmother spoke first. “Oh thank you, Crane, for bringing us back to our home, and thank you, too, Otter for keeping Crane talking so she forgot to eat us. Ah, we should go into the lodge now. It feels so good to be home and you must come as our honored guests, Crane and Otter. Lead the way, my son.”
As Rattler turned to lead them, for a moment they saw him turn into a young boy and then turn back again into a large snake. When they entered in the lodge’s door, Rattler had them set where someone had crafted their pictures on shields; he told them to sit under their pictures and wait patiently. He slid across the floor and set under his picture and again changed into a young boy. Otter tried not to look at the elders as a sign of respect, but he could not help but notice a beautiful woman who sit across from him with a salmon over her head painted on a shield. He smiled at her to show her he didn’t have anything in his teeth that he might have “found”. She turned her face behind her fan, and he thought he heard her giggle quietly, like happy water singing in a little brook. Then before them sitting in front of another pole was another older man and woman who wore Little Shells all over their clothing. They began the ceremony to charge the sacred Cha nu pa (the sacred pipe), to pass it in friendship and welcome.
This is the story of how we of the Crane Clan of the Sacred Tree Society of the Pembina Nation of the Little Shell Band of North America, whose honor it is to speak first, remember coming to the Sacred Tree longhouse made of the Megis shell. We had many adventures along the path, and many more after, but those are other stories
Meguish, all of our relations.
* RECLAIMER
Please understand that the author of this work accepts all responsibility and wishes whomever so desires to use any, all, or nothing of the original content. Furthermore, if one can make it bad, evil or abhorrent somehow to humanity, please try to do so. Please feel free to plagiarize and sell it all, remembering that the Creator of us all gives this away freely with the next breath that you take, and what our true wealth is. The author wishes to plead insanity now and dispense with the inevitable human judgment, because it has been done with no human authority, and so cannot be correct by human opinion, unless one has first obtained permission of the higher authority and understands the gift of forgiveness. Did I pray before this offering? You be the judge, if you also care to be responsible.
I offer this as a song of thanks to the seven generations that came before and the seven generations that shall come after, all my relations, sovereign as they may be.
SACRED TREE SOCIETY: WHO ARE WE?
SACRED TREE SOCIETY CHANUPA BUNDLE