1997 to 1999, Mississaugi First Nation Reserve, Ontario, Canada

By Karen W. Waggoner

Outside his cabin near a thicket of roses and raspberries on a warm July afternoon, Richard Chiblow unwraps a blanket bundle to create a place of honor for his ceremonial pipe, a two-foot stem wrapped with ribbons and an elongated, pipestone bowl. From a beaded medicine bag he draws shells and stones to share the place of honor. He carefully fits the stem of his pipe to the section containing the bowl and, in reverential silence, lights a handful of dried sage in a blackened mussel shell.

Using one of his sacred eagle feathers to fan the smoke, Richard invites us to smudge ourselves, to bathe our faces and heads in the fragrant sage smoke, to pray to become ready for an encounter with the Creator.

While I watch, I am mystified not only by this ritual but that the remarkable old man would include me, a summer resident, a white American, a woman, in the sacred ceremony. I have known Richard for a number of years, aware and wary of his charisma, of the quality of his wisdom and voice that drew me to him to listen but rarely to speak. I am an observer, not a participant, in Richard’s life, and I am tempted to retreat, even though he has led me to this quiet spot to spend the afternoon with him, his nurse, and his young friend, a disciple from Manitoba.

He prays in Ojibway while he packs the bowl of his pipe, then he raises it, unlighted, to the four directions, offering prayers of thanksgiving for the special gifts of each region: the buffalo, the bears, the many tribes, all the climates. He lights the pipe, raises his eyes to the sky, and continues to pray for each one of us in English. He mentions me, calls me “our loved one from the South,” and tears fill my eyes. All thoughts of escape are gone from my mind.

He passes the pipe to each of us from left to right, according to tradition. When we receive it, we are to pray. The sunny spot behind Richard’s house is filled with voices giving thanks for the fellowship, for Richard’s knowledge and companionship, and earnest requests for his healing, for Richard is gravely ill. My voice is thick with emotion, but prayer comes easily because he is the most remarkable man of faith I have ever known.

When the pipe returns to him, he sings a song of praise, a gift, he tells me, from a friend in British Columbia. At last, he wraps the pipe again in its red bundle and reclines in his cot to allow the nurse to draw a sample of blood. I ask him if he is too weary to answer my questions, and he smiles and says the Creator has renewed his strength, just as he expected.

I begin tentatively, hoping to lead him to a chronology of his life, but the frail old man leans toward me eagerly. He will tell me how much he used to long to talk to God, how he decided God didn’t understand Ojibway, and about the profound emptiness of his life until he discovered otherwise.

Just why Richard decided God didn’t speak his language is not difficult to follow. Raised by his traditional Indian grandmother in their village on the banks of the Mississaugi River near Blind River, Ontario, he followed in the footsteps of his ancestors, learning the language and the remnants of his culture. Unfortunately, after her death, he succumbed to drink just as most other young people did. Though he clung to the Roman Catholic faith of his childhood, Indian tradition slipped away. Few of his generation used the old language, and virtually no one practiced the ceremonies of fasting, the sweat lodge, the sacred dance, and much more.

As a young man Richard measured himself by the standards of white men who hired him to do their labor but would not allow him to stand in a bar beside them to drink, labeling him a drunken Indian just like all the rest. He enlisted in the Canadian Army during World War II to take his place among other young warriors and to celebrate his manhood among the girls who admired uniforms, but Richard’s alcoholism and resentment of authority caused him to fail, to “forget I was a soldier.” He went AWOL, was court-martialed and dismissed from the service, more alienated than before.

He married Margaret, a strong-willed Indian girl of his band who also was raised in traditional ways by her grandparents, but who, like Richard, eventually lost touch with her ancestors and turned to alcohol. They raised their eight children and two others with Richard still trying to find his way in a white world. He worked first in the city at steel and pulp mills, then returned with his family to the Mississaugi River, where he tried his hand at hunting and trapping, roofing, and carpentry.

Laughing, he admits he liked guiding rich Americans on forays into the bush, ostensibly to hunt or fish but also to share long evenings of drinking. The Americans were generous with whisky and left their Indian guides with lavish gifts of alcohol. In every line of work, drinking interfered with Richard’s achieving either satisfaction or success.

Finally Margaret led Richard into sobriety, tricking him into attending his first twelve-step meeting. There he saw people genuinely enjoying their lives and heard the testimony of former drunks. He liked what he saw and changed his life but came to recognize that he was not free from the restlessness that had earlier led him to try one church and evangelist after another, searching for his own connection with the Creator. It was then he realized his experience had taught him that God didn’t speak or understand Ojibway, and Ojibway was Richard’s language, not the English, French, or Latin of white culture.

Richard says early Christian missionaries to the Indians probably would have been less zealous had the Indians been able to explain their beliefs and practices. Far from pagan, most native cultures were reverent in their attitude toward the Creator and all the gifts of earth and spirit, but Indian beliefs were quickly outlawed and replaced with talk of sin and punishment.

Frightened Indians abandoned their traditions as useless, even evil, and tried to replace their system with foreign beliefs centered on a vengeful, distant God who, of course, understood no native tongues. The loss of tradition amounted to nothing less than devastation, a sense of separation from all that made sense of existence, a complete loss of power.

Only in recovery did Richard hear of a loving and forgiving God who did not discriminate against even the worst of sinners regardless of their language or background. On a visit to a nearby reserve, Richard participated for the first time in a fast and sweat lodge, watched the sun dance, and came to understand the power of the old ways. Eventually, Richard rediscovered his own heritage, a rich mélange of legend, music, language, and practice centered on the Creator.

As a member of the Ojibway Cultural Foundation on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, Richard and other elders taught one another their language, enriching their stores of knowledge. Then they studied the Bible together. They believe they found Indian tradition in the stories of elders carrying and using staffs, of sacred dances, of James and John, sons of thunder, and more.

With the loving approval of his ailing wife Margaret, and working primarily outside his own band because “a man cannot be a prophet in his own country,” Richard spent more than 25 years working for the sobriety and rebirth of indigenous people. He traveled extensively to visit tribes all over North America to learn and to teach. During those years, Richard spoke to recovery groups, to native groups, and to religious leaders, carrying his message of self respect, recovery, and faith.

Richard’s rediscovery and propagation of his own heritage took place simultaneously with the regeneration of his band and nation. In the early l980s, he built with his own hands a powwow arbor on his reserve and gathered his people for the first traditional powwow in the modern history of the Mississaugi band. Since then, the reserve has been reborn, better and stronger than ever before.

At the 1997 annual celebration of faith, his own people honored Richard for the first time. In a ceremony involving his family of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, his gift of the first arbor was recognized, and despite his grave illness, he led the honor dance, greeting his neighbors and hundreds of friends with a salute from one of his many sacred eagle feathers.

At present, the Anishinabek Nation, the Union of Ontario Indians, is one of the healthiest first-nation groups in North America, without benefit of gambling or bingo or even a brisk tourist trade. A monthly newspaper published in North Bay, Ontario, documents all the activities and issues that concern the many tribes represented in the union, and a proliferation of events, powwows, spiritual conferences, arts seminars, and dramatic presentations demonstrate the vitality of the Anishnabe, “happy people.” Virtually any service is available to tribal members through their own professional and business community. The Ojibway language is taught in tribal schools and offered in public schools.

When I saw him last behind his cabin on that soft July afternoon, Richard claimed no credit for the rebirth of his band and nation. He just smiled. A tall, erect man with the mellifluous voice of a born orator, Richard believed the path to sobriety and productivity is self-respect, not self-promotion. It was his mission to educate and lead his people on that journey to their own power by wise and loving example, and his vision included building respect outside his community and culture, understanding that respect is based on knowledge, not ignorance.

As a part of his mission, he taught me to revere the healing power of the cedar, the sweet grass, the sage, the sacred fire and rain and sky and land. And he taught me to praise the creator for every gift, even the ones we don’t want.

Richard passed from the realm of present reality in March 1998, not knowing or caring that he is my hero. He measured his life by spiritual standards, and while his influence reached beyond the borders of his reserve to the hearts of thousands across the continent, he thought he was successful because he was so happy. He wore cast-off shirts with no buttons and accepted gifts no more valuable than a can of tobacco to use for its sacred smoke.

He didn’t correct me, however, when I called him teacher, and I think it made him proud that I considered him a spiritual conduit through which the power of the Creator is made known.

Karen W. Waggoner is a retired English teacher who spends wintertime in Arkansas with her husband, usually writing, quilting, building dollhouse miniatures, and more. They live in Ontario in the summer, near Blind River and the Mississaugi First Nation Reserve.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Monday, March 12th, 2007 | Email This Post

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