From One Raven's Eye

Page 7

Ahneen, hello, tansi and howdy. By the time you read this, a million turkeys will be history. There will be widespread sorrow in the turkey community. Did you think bout that as you sat stuffed into a turkey shape yourself after that tasty meal? Nah, I won't either.

Did you know the turkey, which is a native of North America also, is like partridge in how they act. They can both be trusting and curious just when they shouldn't be. Our own history with the reason for Thanksgiving is sort of that way, also.

Here is how that story goes. They say if it wasn't for us, the European settlers on the east coast would have starved for sure those first few winters over here. There was a local Indian leader they named King Phillip who also encouraged the people to help feed those Pilgrims. A few years later, in a fight over land rights, he got chopped up and carried to five different places at once by those same God fearing and grateful immigrant citizens.

Maybe that could all be straightened out if those people's ancestors would invite a Native person over to their house to share a meal once a year. Probably not, though. Most of us would be too shy. Who could eat with some kid starting at you like you had just stepped out of a Walt Disney movie on TV.

Still, the time has certain good things going for it. Food, family, a long weekend. A friend of ours gave us some wild rice to have with our meal this year. Anyway, all this got me to thinking about us and what is culturally identifiable with the Aboriginal stomach.

Do you remember in history class they would read a paragraph about how we have contributed to the development of what is now called North America society. Let's see, there was squash, potatoes, clam chowder ... Just when you started to feel important, the list would end and they would never mention Indians again.

We must have eaten alright back then, though, before the days of Safeway and Hudson's Bay. They figure we are just now getting back up to the popukation we were at before that hey-look-what-we-discovered time. If we were all slowly freezing and starving then, that must have been better for our heatlh than what we have had to put up with lately.

Every group has its own style of cooking and things pretty well unique to it. If you go into an Italian, Greek or Ukrainian place, you know what kind of food to expect. You can, however, unless you are in Winnipeg, Vancouver, or Montreal, go into an Indian restaurant and not recognize a thing at all.

Real North American Indian eating places tend to come and go like that. They try to serve wild meat and end up with the problem of year round and reliable supply. The thing about wild meat is that it is, well, wild. It tends to run around a lot and is hard to get on a plate every time you want or need it.

If you were asked what to put on such a menu, what Indians typically eat, what would you include? Uh, let's see now. Besides bannock, macaroni, anything from the bush, prairie and river you can catch, there is not much else from around this area that's totally different from what other people eat.

Once at the rez, they did a survey to see how much wild meat we still eat. It was embarrassing. Working in the band office doesn't give you much time to be out on the land sniffing around. Also people who never had the money for a gun or a boat and motor are stuck that way, too. There are hunters there yet but not as many as there once was.

Back in the olds days, they used to eat everything they could get their hands on. Beaver, skunk, chickadees everything and not just the good looking parts either, the entire item.

Two things come into mind trying to picture how a person went about filling up their grocery order back then. One is out on snowshoes in mid January. An entire white gray landscape cold and bleak. The fading light and your pressing need weighing on your shoulders as heavy as a stone-filled pack.

The other is what went on when the food ran out. The huger grabbing our stomach in a bony desperate fist, twisting our thinking. Those stories are scary and weird, brr...

Apart from the fact those of us with jobs get weekends off, we still spend a lot of time scratching around for stuff to eat. Ten ours a day in work related activity at least. Also people like me don't have to be so physically tough. I can do some of my hunting from my living room couch.

Those who live on assistance of some kind know the same kind of anxiety the long ago people felt. This is true especially when by the third week of the month you look into the cupboard and you never see enough of what you need for the kids' lunch.

I hate to talk about food and eating and leave you with noting at all. Here's a recipe that appeals to an Ojibway love of sweet stuff. In a bowl you can mix together one cup sugar, two teaspoons baking powder, one 14 oz. can of fruit cocktail (juice, too) and two eggs. To this you add two cups flour. Pour this into a greased 9 x 13 cake pan, slide into an oven set at 350 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes. Now when that is near done, you make a sauce. This is a combination of half cup of canned milk, one teaspoon vanilla, two tablespoons butter of margarine. This you heat to boiling and pour over the cake while it's still hot. Whenever the kids need something for a bake sale, I, who can't cook that good, make this. It's worked every time so far.

There are places you go where they always seem to have a pot of Nabob or something to feed their visitors with on the stove. You sit there with a bowl of generosity, a couple of simple, good hearted giving and you wish to be just like that at your own place, also. After all these years, all these times, they don't change, no mater what. You feed your visitors and treat them right because what other way is there.

Well that's it. See you all next week.