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

10. The Guardian-Warrior Path

k 110 PROtECtOR, SCOut, EMISSARY, negotiator, provider, mentor: these and more are the roles of the Guardian-Warrior. In a real sense, we are all Guardians because we each, in our own way, are called upon to serve our People. Every one of us is born with a special gift, or talent, which we are to develop, in order that we might use it for the good of others. “Our People,” in the Native sense, includes the Plant People, Fish People, Rock People, and in fact all else that exists. to a Native, these People are Relations: all Sisters and Brothers with a common Mother, Earth, and the same Father, Sky. From this perspective, it is not hard to see how so much of what we do is in the service of our People. I share the next stories as examples of how we can serve our Relations, and of how we can groom and enlist our unique talents for this service. Chapter Ten TheGuardianWarriorPath Aneen (GreetinGs) and welcome to the Minisino (Guardian–Warrior) training camp. earlier this Sun, your hair was burnt and your face was blackened with charcoal: a ritual breaking away from your self-centered life and past involvements. tomorrow your life will be your People’s, and their well-being will be your focus. tonight you may rest, as the coming dawn will begin your training with your elder Minisino sisters and Brothers. now, as the night Shkode (Fire) begins to wane, this Person would like to gift you a story that you can take with you into your dreamtime. There your dreamself might give you the spirit of the story, so that when you awake, your spirit will be dancing with the spirit of the Minisino. Come with me now as we journey back to the time when all the People lived as one. The Leggeds and Wingeds and Finned would lodge and hunt and eat together. in that time there was a Two-Legged hunter named e shkawanak (spike-Horn). He got his name from his preference for making arrowheads from the tips of antlers. There was also a hunter of the FourLeggeds , a Ma’eengan (Wolf) named KeenzhigGookookoo (Owl-eyes). she was called Keenzhig for short, and she was given her name because she had the gift of sensing things that lay beyond normal sight. eshkawanak and Keenzhig had been friends for a long time. some of their earliest memories were of sitting together around shkode in the Winter Wigwam (Lodge) and listening to the elders’ stories of a Land they had heard about long ago when they were Children. This Land was rumored to be over the Mountains, and strange trees and Animals were supposed to dwell there. “Do you remember the elders telling us how big some of those creatures grew?” asked Keenzhig. “Much larger than anything we know!” “i sure do,” responded eshkawanak. “i especially recall the hairy Bearlike creature they called Misabe (Giant). The old storytellers would describe him in frightful detail to try to scare us, and they did! i’d dream of him and wake up screaming.” “i think we all did,” added Keenzhig. “Just going out in the dark was a scary ordeal after a story like that. And yet as we grew up, we seemed to forget about the spooky parts and be drawn more to the magic of a faraway place.” even though Keenzhig and eshkawanak were now young adults, they—as is typical of natives—never lost their Childlike sense of adventure and curiosity for the unknown. it was no surprise to anyone when one sun in the Moon of the Freezing Over (november), the Owl Eyes Saves Her People trust k 111 k 112 Whispers of the Ancients two young hunters decided to go to that storied Land in quest of Winter meat for their camp. excitement ran high in the pair as they crossed the high pass and prepared to descend into the far valley. Around the evening campfire, they would retell the stories they knew so well— the stories that lured them on this adventure. As they followed the elk trail over the last ridge and into the forested valley below, their eyes grew wide with wonder. Ancient trees towered above them as they walked amidst the massive columns of their trunks. “i have to sit down,” exclaimed eshkawanak. “This is so overwhelming—i am in rapture! All...