A SACRED PRAYER

Creator,  Kwe..

Look upon your children as protecters of Mother Earth.......That the sod and water of Mother Earth  will remain pure for the next seven generations that follow. AND as a people   may we follow the foot steps of our forefathers and only take from her  what we need to survive.

In Honour and Respect we ask the blessing to embrace our courage and strength,  to undo any wrong doing ,

 As Mi'kmaq people we have to find a way to bring back our Language that is hidden under every leaf and rock,  and  also all our core values that are within  the tongues  of all Creation.

For this is  our duty ,  our sacred burden to  our CHILDREN....

Pikto'l Sa'ke'j Muise..VJM..(Ancient Spirit of the White Wolf )

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LEN'S FAVORITE SALMON RECIPE

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Len’s Favorite Salmon Recipe

I always remember my early years of growing up in St. George’s, Newfoundland. We lived on the outskirts of town ,on Steel Mountain Road, on the top of what we called “The Hill” by the other sections of town called “Dog’s Town” . Up until the 1960’s most people living on “The Hill” kept hunting dogs. At that time we were nearing the end of our traditional hunting and trapping lifestyle because most men were now working away from home with companies that paid wages for work. My family still partook in a token traditional lifestyle because up until I finished high school and left home in 1966, we still had a few cattle.

In summer , for me 1955-1965, we children used to go into Hell’s Gulch which was our traditional summer camping site. Hell's Gulch was a valley located on the banks of Flat Bay Brook River which was situated eight miles southeast of St. Georges.

 We went to cut firewood for the winter months and to make hay for our animals ......sheep, cows, goats, and horses. We also picked berries, hazelnuts; pine cones, fern stocks, and collected lots of other plants and animals. We  caught and salted upwards to ten barrels of salmon for the winter. Hell's Gulch was used by the Muise family as a winterhouse [a winterhouse was a safe place to live during the winter months because of the availability of wood, wild game and easy access to trapping grounds]. We usually camped for upwards of two weeks with the older children taking care of the younger ones. My grandfather had a cabin and several barns but we children usually stayed out into one large tent or on hot nights we just sleep under the stars. In the camp were  young teenagers and younger children , as young as seven or eight, there were always older adults around the area that would check on us from time to time.

Food was always a problem because we were such a large family [my parents had nineteen children] so very often someone would drop into our camp with a fresh salmon, a piece of recently killed moose or caribou, some freshly baked bread or some recently cooked wild apple pie. If you can visualize this camp then you will understand this cooking story which started when our close cousin, Walter Drake and his friend David Jesso, brought into our camp a very large twenty-five pound freshly caught salmon.  

How do you work all day and them cook something as big as the salmon that the boys brought into our camp? Walter and David said that we should bake it because it would be easier to prepare other things with the salmon if it was all baked together. My older sisters Doreen, Odelle and Cecilia helped me with preparing this dish. I was around eleven years old at the time. We decided to bake the salmon wrapped into birch bark. We had no salt or pepper so we used a little fresh butter [which was made very salty back in those times] on the outside of the fish. Into the salmon’s belly we placed a couple of handfuls of juniper berries, some freshly cut dandelions, a few fresh onions, potatoes cut into circular thin slices, and a couple of half-soft turnips cut into cubes. On top of that mixture we put some bread crumbs mixed with half-ripped blueberries. We then tied the salmon with thick cod-line [a white line about 2-3 millimeters thick] and wrapped it into the birch bark.

That night we dug a shallow hole [about fourteen inches deep] just the size of the wrapped salmon, about two feet away from our nightly, very large campfire. When we were ready for bed the fire coals were blood-red. We moved the live coals [by sticks] over the buried salmon. There were at least a foot of hot coals lying over the large salmon. Then we went to sleep with strong visions of a great breakfast just waiting for us in the morning. 

In the early morning we kicked the spent coals away from the buried salmon and dug out the now perfectly cooked fish. The combined smell of birch, juniper, and cooked vegetables was mouth watering. The fish was cooked to perfection. We ate that cooked salmon with its varied stuffing for the next two days. I often cook salmon with stuffing, and sometimes I still bury it, but today I just use foil wrap. The taste is not the same and I always wonder if it’s the foil wrap or the fact that I am getting too modernized ?

NO-SEE- UMS

No-See-Ums


Legends of the People


The darkening sky looks ominous as monstrous claps of thunder roars in the near mountain range. Huge bolts of sinister, sinuous lightning shoots outward into the meandering river valley. Sheets of icy, horizontal rain lash the partially unclad torus chest of the man. But the earthly elements in their savage attack on everything standing are unnoticed by the medicine man as he clumsily vaults the last few paces up into the narrow, poorly lit, rock crevice. He was a man with such an acrimonious decision to contemplate that to him nature=s undiluted fury was like a singular grain of sand on the ocean floor. In fact, his turbulent thought processes were not unlike the raging storm, whose ferocious onslaught he was now freed from as the minute cave, an often frequented sanctuary, offers some protection.

What unearthly forces had caused this proud, influential leader to be in such a precarious predicament? Was it that the GREAT SPIRIT had been angered by him or one of the people? Why had this unforgivable, negligent act occurred? Would he be the fearless, undaunted medicine man at the appointed time? All these monumental questions stir within his tormented brain as the stark realism of his tribal duty forces itself into his aching consciousness. With a primal cry of utter despair the once fiercely proud leader decides; He has no choice. His son, Wijaw, must be punished for his negligent act. He must banish Wijaw from the people, forever.

Once this disheartening decision surfaced in the leader's rational mind he briefly recalls the events leading to this troubled moment. Wijaw was his only off-spring; A young man, in his twelfth summer, eager to prove his worth to the small, inland tribe and to his doting father. It was this fallacious pride in his son=s ability that had induced him to select Wijaw as a night guard for the tribe on their recent coastal walk-a-bout.

Wijaw was honored at this distinction granted him by his father. His youthful pride prevented him from admitting to tribal elders the fact that he had become debilitated after the arduous, all day walk. He did not want people to think that the son of the tribal medicine man was not yet prepared to take on the full responsibilities of manhood. As the humid, brackish, cloud filled night lingered along like two snails crossing a mud puddle, the young man had succumbed to his primeval need for sleep. It was at the moment of Wijaw=s deepest slumber that the enemy had attacked.

The leader looks out into the raging storm but all he sees with his mind=s eye are the grossly mangled bodies of his people. In the time it had taken Wijaw to react to the deadly, surprise attack five people lay dead. The elders deliberated for several days but centuries old practices had to be followed. Tribal law was quite clear. When an individual threatened or caused harm to the group that person had to be banished from the tribe. There was no leeway or forgiveness on matters of this magnitude. The devastated medicine man cries out from his lookout sanctuary into the violent storm front. AOh GREAT SPIRT, give me guidance in this my hour of need. It was my destructive pride that caused this calamity to my people. Wijaw is but a boy. Please allow him to live.@ The sobbing wails emitting from the prostrated leader sounded like far away thunder. Hours later the broken hearted man falls into a semi-conscious sleep.

A bluish-grey timber mouse looks sternly into the reddish eyes of the dormant leader and softly starts talking to him. Your cry for guidance has been heard, and the boy will not be banished, Oh Honored One. But the ways of the people are sacred, and the law must be followed. I will cause a new insect to evolve which will be smaller than the eye can see. It will have the bloodthirsty bite of creatures many times its size. This mosquito will prevent night guards from falling asleep during their watch, and over time will become known as No-See-Ems. They will become a constant reminder of the concealed enemy, unseen but always ready to attack.

The leader sits unpretentiously on the cold floor of the open ended cave overlooking the river valley. Like his father before him he often comes to this placid hideaway during thunderstorms to deliberate on issues affecting his people. The roaring thunder gives him reverence towards the GREAT SPIRT. It humbles him as a man to witness the gigantic forces of the universe. Today he recalls his father=s violent death, on this very spot, many seasons ago.

Wijaw now realizes that his father ceded his life so that he would live. The lightning bolt which penetrated the once proud medicine man had consumed all the parts of his father=s body except one hand which was holding a timber mouse. The frightened mouse scrambled away when the elders had entered the cave that day. They realized with shocked acceptance that tribal duty had been followed to its ultimate end.

The ways of the GREAT SPIRT are indeed strange.

Written by Eagle Catcher,FOR (Ancient Spirit of the White Wolf ) June 2004

THE UNKNOWN FORCE OF NATURE

Children’s Grave Site – Oct. 23, 2005 [Breaches Brook]  ...THE  UNKNOWN FORCE OF  NATURE


It is not known to but few. The strangest film came  over my entire  body. My Spirit lifted in the sunlight and a million energy radii circled around me . This is a source for the more important me  to inter into that field of the spirit world. It captured me in a vision  that I still don't believe.

Breaches Brook is 2 km from Seal Rocks NE where the Mi’kmaq people used the waterways and  main trails in the country. Families have been living here since 1700 even before.

Many stories were told of a family of three children that died of starvation and were buried 3 miles from the southern side , up from the railway trussel in Breaches Brook, up the river. [To the east].

An elderly lady, 90 years old,  in 2005 told her son that she was three years old when their family moved from Sandy Point, because of the great storms in winter months and it was hard to survive them. So their family decided to move to Breaches to shelter themselves in winter and it was easier to obtain fresh caribou from the Indians that would travel the western country in winter by dog team.

She said in 1930 – 1940, times were tough for all the people and sometimes tunnels had to be dug to get to their outhouses, snow about four or five feet above them. She said they lived in extreme conditions and winter months took toll on many of the families in the whole of Bay St. George.

She knows many stories but  I dare not  see this woman to remind her of these days. I visited this area in the fall of 2005 and said a few words in condolence for those children and left the site undisturbed , and not to reenter this site ever again.

Pikto'l Sa'ke'j Muise.

(Ancient Spirit of the White Wolf)