♪ I've been able to collect a lot of photographs
of our people, and once in a while I would bring them
out into the center and the elders
would come and sit and they'd look at those photos
and they'd reminisce. And the sparkle
is what I would see. The joy in looking at
those old pictures and remembering
how it used to be. I always like to see that. It was a happy time. A lot of it
was happy times for them, but then there were
also sadness, too. I always kind of seen
our tribe as being what I jokingly call
"the low man on the totem pole" because other tribes have
so many things going for them, and our tribe always
kind of seems to be last. But we are trying very hard to retain the things and the gifts that
were given to us by the creator. ♪ St. Croix History
was funded in part by: Irene Daniell Kress, Francis A. and
Georgia F. Ariens Fund of the Community Foundation
for the Fox Valley Region, Evjue Foundation, Ron and Patty Anderson, Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin
Wisconsin Idea Endowment, Timothy William Trout
Education Fund, National Endowment
for the Humanities, and Friends of
Wisconsin Public Television. [birds chirping] ♪ - Um... versus Ojibwe. - Oh, yeah?
- And... My name is Wanda McFaggen. My Indian name
is Biidaabanookwe, and that translates
to Daybreak Woman. I come from the Sand Lake
community of St. Croix. Mitaawangaa indoonjiba, my community. I'm from the migizi clan. - My name is Mitchell La Sarge,
and that's my government name. [Speaks Ojibwe] Ojibwe... [Speaks Ojibwe] I come from
the St. Croix Chippewa Indians
of Wisconsin band. And I work under the
education department as a culture coordinator. And my traditional name is
Bagwaj-inini. That was given to me
when I was still a child. I can't recall
having a ceremony, but we don't decide them,
you know? It's the manidoo, the spirits,
that give us these names. And what mine
roughly translates into is Man in the Woods,
Wilderness Man, and that's a spirit. It's a manidoo
that we pray to. He's the keeper
of this land we have. He watches over the land,
the woods. When I'm among my people,
I always tell my name, who I am. That's how I recognize myself. We encourage our people
that have these names, not just the government names, because that's how the spirits
recognize who we are, and we become closer
with the spirits for help. They help us
in many ways, and... I always bring
up my name, you know, when I put my
tobacco down, my asemaa. I never say my English name. - [McFaggen]: We migrated
from the east coast. The prophets told us
that we had to move west, that there was a light-skinned
race that was coming and if we didn't move, we could potentially
be destroyed. And the prophets told us that we needed to follow
the megis shell, until we found food that grows
on water, and that's wild rice. So we began our migration,
and it took many years. There's seven stopping places
along the migration route where the megis shell set down and we did our Mide Lodge. Our last stop
was on Madeline Island, and that we consider
to be the spiritual hub of the Anishinaabe. From there,
one of our Marten Clans started to leave Madeline Island and head down towards
the St. Croix River. We had settlements
on Rice Lake in Danbury. Some settlements
down by Lac Wisconsin, our Round Lake community. - [La Sarge]: The Marten Clan, we hold that clan here. You see, the St. Croix
is on the border of Ojibwe country
and the Sioux people. And at a time,
it was said we were called
the border sitters... because, you know, we were
on the edge of our country. You know, the Ojibwe and any
further was the Sioux people. It was kind of a...
maybe a warrior mentality that we watched for them
to come into our country because Marten is said to be
a strategic and warrior clan. - When the treaties began,
the 1837 treaty, we had a distinct identity. There were three chiefs
that signed that treaty. And with the treaty of 1842, some of the same chiefs
signed that treaty, too. With the treaty of 1854, we lost our identity in the eyes of the government. They said that
none of our chiefs were at that treaty-making and none of them
signed the treaty. But we've done
a lot of research, and we've come to find
that our Chief Ayaabens, Little Buck,
signed that treaty, but he signed it under
the Lac Courte Oreilles band. So because of that we lost our
identity as being St. Croix. And it took about 70 years for
us to establish our homeland. Our people went to a lot
of Senate committee hearings and voiced
about our land here. So eventually the government
started to listen to us, and we got our
recognition in 1934 with the Indian
Reorganization Act. And we, our band
name then became the St. Croix Chippewa Indians
of Wisconsin. We chose to use Chippewa because of our dealings
with the US government. That was the name
that was designated to us. Although we were,
in our own way, we call ourselves Anishinaabe. But in dealing with
the different tribes a long time ago, we were known as Ojibwe because of the style
of moccasins we wore. Our moccasins were pucker-toed, and that's what other tribes
called us by, was the Ojibwe. - My family's always
been here, St. Croix. During my mother's birth,
she was born in Cook County, Chicago, Illinois. That's when all the Indians were
moved to cities and stuff to try-- you know,
they were promised things, jobs. Good things like that. So my mother was born there, and throughout that time
we'd always, my grandmother would always
bring them back here to our reservation
where we came from. Some of the younger ones, like my mother and her
cousins from their age, it was very different, because
in the city there's water. There's everything there for
them, but coming back up here to the reservations,
it wasn't like that, you know? We had to go down to
the lake for water,
nobody had water pumps. We had to work
much harder, but... they're reminded of who they
are and why we do these things. - I tried very desperately
to learn my tradition because I grew up in Chicago, and my mother would bring us
up here during the summertime. But we didn't stay long enough to learn a lot of traditional
things until we moved back here. And then I just
sought out people that would be able to help me. - My grandmother,
she was very traditional, and since I was a baby, I
remember her being traditional. Throughout my high school years, I kind of veered off track
of our traditions. Other things
came into play, you know, going to a white
school, off the reservation. Sports, you know. Girls, all that stuff,
you know, came into play. The further I got from
my traditions and our ceremonies and way of life,
it seemed to get worse. It took me a long
time to understand that. I was a very hard-headed person. And my grandmother,
she was someone that always encouraged me
to remember who we are, and I think the way she
went about it helped me a lot because eventually I did
start remembering who I was and what I'm supposed
to do as a person, as an Anishinaabe person. I started out by going
back to our Big Drums. - [McFaggen]: We rely on
our elders quite a bit. They're the ones that
hold our past for us. They're the ones that are the
keepers of our traditions, the keepers of our way. My mentor, Benny Rogers, he's passed away,
and I miss him. He-- He--
(mournful emotion) He would tell me a lot of
different things that... traditional things
that the people used to do a long time ago, and kind of reflected on
how things have changed and that a lot of
our young people are walking away from the
traditions and the values. In my position
for the tribe, I consider myself to
be the middle man. I've learned a lot of things
from the elders, and it's my responsibility to
pass that onto the children. - These past five years or so,
a lot of elders have passed that knew songs, knew the language,
and, at the same time, among our young people,
they've been lost sort of. They release into
drugs and alcohol. It's been running pretty
rampant on our reservation. Overdoses are going crazy. That's a topic we've been
talking about a lot is these younger people
and their troubles. How we can kind of stop it and
guide them on their path, find what they're
passionate about. There's the AODA
department recovery program that I work with also,
and they wanted me to be there because I'm still
young, somewhat. They think I can relate to a lot of younger
generations coming up. They want the younger
generations to see that you don't need to be an elder
to know these things and do these things. I can recall some things that pushed me towards
our traditional ways. One was my grandmother. She got pretty sick, and whenever someone's sick we usually have feasts
and pray for them. And you know it... ...scared me. ♪ But, during them times in
those feasts, you know, we'd be smiling. It's a community effort. And it made me feel
good afterward. Lightened my heart, and... every time I feel
rejuvenated from ceremonies. Then she got better. She got better and she,
some years went by and... I eventually got put on
the Big Drum, as a member. And... my grandmother
would always tell me that's the best thing you
could do for your people. - We are a Big Drum Society, and that drum was given to us by the Sioux people,
the Lakota people. And it traveled all
through this area, and they say that how
that drum came to be was because soldiers were
killing the Lakota people and a lady went into the water
and hid from the soldiers. And while she was there,
the spirits talked to her and told her how to
make this peace drum. We're told that as long
as that drum sounds that we will live in peace. We have that for
our spirituality. We also have the
Midewiwin Lodge. I'm Second Degree Mide. There's not too much
I can say about that. I can share with my family
what goes on with Midewiwin, but that's all. - That's how our ceremonies
work, you know? We keep them secret. And I'm always wary about how
to speak on our ceremonies. You know, it's a sacred thing,
it's a spiritual thing, so some things we
can't talk about. A lot of things we
can't talk about... so I only go so
in depth about them. I don't want something to
happen to me because of it. (chuckles) - [McFaggen]: We're
taught that we always are supposed to carry our tobacco. And when we see an eagle,
we can put our tobacco down. We can pray for good things. We can pray for the ones that
are suffering in our family. And the eagle will
take those prayers up to the creator for us, because he's the only one
that can go up that high. So, we're told that
he's our messenger. And any time we see an eagle,
we put our tobacco down. Any time we gather, anything,
we put our tobacco down. Anything that we take from aki,
Mother Earth here, we are supposed to
offer our tobacco. - [La Sarge]: At times,
it feels like a heavy load. But, that's when I pray,
you know? I put my tobacco down
and it helps a lot. A lot of ways are forgotten. People forget these things, how ceremonies go,
because they don't go enough or they really
don't go at all. See, when we're at our Big Drum, there's a speaker that
prays for everyone there. And when we're there, you know,
them spirits are with us. The drum is spread out
across a lot of Ojibwe bands. One thing I want to do
is go to other drums, and I have been doing that. And it was a great time,
you know? It was a great experience the first time I went beyond
my own community drum. ♪ It opened my eyes to how
much other people want to carry on these things. When I travel to these
other drums, you know, that can help,
sit at that drum, sing, gain knowledge in these legends, because through ceremonies,
they say, there's elders or people
there that know things. You should say them, you know,
these legends of our people. And through that they
get passed down in a sacred way
and a respectful way. Through my job I want
to help navigate, some of these younger
ones with troubles, to our ceremonies. I want them to understand that it can help them throughout
their whole life. - I don't think I've
ever attended a feast or a ceremonial
gathering that... you always see rice. People bring rice all the time. When you hurt the environment,
you also hurt the Earth. And our people have always
relied on the Earth for our food, for our
medicines, everything. This lake here is a
good example of that. It used to be abundant
with wild rice. My family riced this
lake all the time. But, I'm not quite sure who
thought of the idea to put carp in this lake to combat another
invasive species of this lake. And the carp overran the lake
and damaged all of the rice. So the rice is all gone here. My cousin and I
became very concerned about our rice here. And so we went from tribe to
tribe with tobacco and gifts. We started at Mille Lacs. We went to Fond du Lac, and
just kind of made a big circle. And we went and talked to
all of the spiritual people. We didn't know some of them, but
we would go in the community and ask who the
spiritual people were. So we talked with all of them,
and we asked them to come. You know, come and hold
lodge with us here. Come and help us. Pray for our rice. So they came. We held lodge for
four years in a row. You know, they would come all
the time and help us pray. We would sing, we
would feast and dance and it was a good thing. We used that part, but we
also used the Western part because our EPA department,
during that same time, was working with the county here
to remove a lot of the carp. During that time too,
our EPA was reseeding the lake. So we have 80 acres of wild
rice that's flourishing. With our prayers to the creator, we believe that this
lake in the future will hold rice
again for our people. Rice, to us, is a very
special gift from the creator. - [La Sarge]: I wanted to know
who I was, you know? I wanted to know my identity. And a lot of people, I think,
have trouble nowadays with psychological issues because they don't
know who they are. I have a sister, and... one of her sons is
getting a little bit older. Seven or so maybe. And we bring him
to the Big Drums. We bring him to these water
feasts, blueberry feasts. When I was growing up,
my mother took care of us, I really didn't have a prominent male role figure
to show me these things, tell me who I was
as a young man growing up, what my responsibility was. So, I think that also
had a part in my identity, my crisis when I was a young
teenager acting out, sort of. And that's why I
want to try so hard... to gain what I can for
my nephew and my nieces. I want him to know who he is. I want him to help other people
and carry on these things because if he doesn't, who will? Papers? Documents? And, I want him to understand
why we do these things. He's very perceptive toward it. He really likes it, and
I'm glad he does, you know? Because I can see how, with me
being there as his uncle, he has someone to look up to. He sees the importance of it, and he told me he wanted
to grow up to drum like me. That made me really happy. ♪ - To learn more about the sovereign Indian Nations
in Wisconsin, visit WisconsinFirstNations.org. To purchase a DVD of this and
other Tribal Histories programs, visit WPT.org
or call 800-422-9707. St. Croix History
was funded in part by: Irene Daniell Kress, Francis A. and
Georgia F. Ariens Fund of the Community Foundation
for the Fox Valley Region, Evjue Foundation, Ron and Patty Anderson, Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin
Wisconsin Idea Endowment, Timothy William Trout
Education Fund, National Endowment
for the Humanities, and Friends of
Wisconsin Public Television.
