Whispers of the Ancients: Native Tales for Teaching and Healing in Our Time

Contents

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x Dedication: In Honor of Keewaydinoquay . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Preface: by Moses (Amik) Beaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv The Doorway to These Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xviii Introduction: A Story to Invoke All Stories . . . . . . . . . . xxii Part i The Power of Story: Where Stories Come from and Why We Tell Them Introduction: Story Is Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 One The Role of Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Global Story • Wearer of Many Hats • Proverbs Two The Soul of a Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Living the Story • Another Reality Three The Body of a Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Story as Metaphor • Starving for Oneness Contents ฀ ฀ viii Four Where Stories Come From . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 The Storyline • Connecting with the Storyline • Clan Memory • Clan Knowledge • Fairytale or Fact? • The Little People Five The Role of the Storyteller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Storytelling Protocol • Are You a Storyteller? • Children Need Storytellers • A Dying Trade? • Sharing Stories from Other Cultures Six Learning through Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Stories: Not a Matter of Fact Part ii The Stories Seven The Gifting Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 How We Came to Wear the Skins and Furs of Animals wanderlust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Medicine Spear personal power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 The Circle Way generosity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Eight Self-Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Two Hungry Bears self-acceptance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 How Bear-Heart-Woman Brought Truth Back to the People truthspeaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 How Flute Came to the People pride . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 The Rattle Who Stole Personal Power envy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 How to Live with a Wolverine anger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Nine Winter Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 How Birch Got His Thunderbirds trickster . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 How Winter Came to Be Five Moons humility . . . . . . . . . . 92 How the Four Directions Came to Be jealousy . . . . . . . . . . . 98 How Helldiver Got Her Name deceit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Ten The Guardian-Warrior Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Owl Eyes Saves Her People trust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 How Chant Came to the People relationship . . . . . . . . . . . 117 How Animal Guides Came to Be humanness . . . . . . . . . . . 121 How the Peace Drum Came to the People greed . . . . . . . . 128 ฀ ix Eleven Seeing through Different Eyes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 How a Boy Learned to Hunt teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Sisters of the Moon conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 The Scream That Stilled the Forest grief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 How to Put Nuts in a Basket awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 The Woman and the Talking Feathers gossip . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Twelve The Journey Called Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 The Grandfather and the Stone Canoe criticism . . . . . . . . . 164 Raccoon Helps Fox Find His Hunger self-discovery . . . . . . 171 Night of the Windigo fear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Afterword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 Glossary of Ojibwe Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 For Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 ...