The Walleye War: The Struggle for Ojibwe Spearfishing and Treaty Rights

7 Anishinaabe Summer

7 Anishinaabe Summer 12. Carrying the aim flag, members of the Wa-Swa-Gon Treaty Association march at the town of Minocqua’s Fourth of July parade in 1989. Photo courtesy of the author. Within days of the end of the 1989 season, the leaders of Wa-Swa-Gon Treaty Association were caught up in activities within and beyond the borders of Lac du Flambeau to gain more support for the treaty rights movement. Throughout the summer, they also intensified their efforts to shape the local revitalization of Ojibwe culture and prophecy that lay at the heart of the Walleye War. The broad-based coalition that had begun to develop that spring took root and blossomed. An alliance with the American Indian Movement and a host of non-Indian organizations helped the Wa-Swa-Gon Treaty Association to make a number of dramatic statements—including an epic walk across the state, a parade through Minocqua on the Fourth of July, and a showdown with the Flambeau tribal council at a reservation powwow. Such events worked to bolster the legitimacy of the wta, mold tribal and public awareness of the spearfishing dispute, and further call into question the boundaries of cultural tradition the conflict evoked. the war away from home On May 11, four days after the Flambeau tribal council declared the spearing season temporarily over, four leaders of the spearfishing movement—Walter Bresette of the Red Cliff, and Nick Hockings, Scott Smith, and Tom Maulson of Lac du Flambeau—journeyed to Chicago to speak at a forum at the request of James Yellowbank of the Indian Treaty Rights Committee. The event was held at the United Church of Christ in Rogers Park on Chicago’s far north side. The importance of these four men seeing themselves and each other being listened to by a mostly unknown audience should not be underestimated. The City—meaning all cities—lies outside the known and significant reservation world, where the bonds of morality and accountability are perceived to be weakest. Indians occasionally will criticize those who represent themselves as super-Indians far away 158 Anishinaabe Summer from home, where being an Indian is far easier than living up to the demanding moral standards of the reservation. Residents of reservations seem to recognize that identities simplify and essentialize with distance from the grounds of their original production. Representing the spearfishing conflict so far away from home, therefore, was a great risk for each of the leaders. What was said that night, then, became one of the operative histories of the 1989 season because it was communicated in that circumstance of trust. About forty people attended the Treaty Rights Forum. Walter Bresette , as emcee, first introduced Scott Smith, who spoke about the value of spearing as a distinct Indian tradition and how he felt about seeing white high school acquaintances protesting at the boat landings . He presumed that the audience was more capable of recognizing the value of cultural distinctions than the local whites back in Wisconsin . Of particular significance that night was Nick Hockings’s stylized oratorical performance of what was one of the first public tellings of the events at Butternut Lake. Hockings drew connections between the current conflict, the Osh-ki-bi-ma-di-zeeg prophecy and revitalization of Ojibwa culture, and the importance of non-Indian interest and involvement in the struggle. The local conflict, he told those gathered, had global implications and their involvement in it had been prophesized . Nick Hockings’s comments are most comprehensive and revealing of the way in which the Walleye War was perceived and represented by the spearfishing leadership. Flambeau people were imagining and portraying themselves as the authoritative agents in an unfolding prophetic history. In transcribing his speech I choose a more poetic than prosaic style in order to foreground better his cadence, emphasis, and other rhetorical devices.1 Boojoo! Biindigay Gezhick Giiwiitaakamikoaun indizhinikazh. Migizi nintotem. Waswaaganing nindoonjibah. I’m eagle clan and I come from Waswaaganing what other Indians call Lac du Flambeau, a long time ago it was called Waswaaganing Waswaaganing literally translates Anishinaabe Summer 159 ‘‘Waswa,’’ means spearing, spearing with a torch. ‘‘ganing,’’ the locator, the place where it happens. Waswaaganing, the place where they fish with a torch. But spearing has been going on at Lac du Flambeau for many, many hundreds of years, a long time before...