Our Story: Aboriginal Voices on Canada's Past by Tantoo Cardinal Page B

restored.
    To long to be an Indian, as this youngster longed to be, may be dismissed as nothing more than a childhood fancy, a phase. But the longing to be an “Indian” is not confined to youth today.
    Just a little over five hundred years ago this boy’s ancestors came to this continent when Columbus, blown off course, landed in the Caribbean. Not long after him came Cortés, Pizarro, Cartier, and Cabot seeking a western passage to the Far East with its silver, silks, and spices. Here on this continent, these adventurers saw lands and riches, customs and practices that they had not seen or heard of in their part of the world. Within a few short years these adventurers, their crews, and their sponsors abandoned their pursuit of the Far East and its riches. They wanted what the North American Indians had; they longed to be like the Indians.

The Wampum Belt Tells Us
…
    For hundreds of years before the coming of the White people, the Wampum Belt, a chronicle of a people’s history, had few new symbols woven into its fabric. It was as if nothing worth recording had taken place, no wars, nothing but peace. The last event to be recorded was the battle between the Anishinaubae and Cat Nations. Since then nothing.
    At first these landings of White people were not taken seriously by most—bad navigation, bad seamanship; but others saw them as a fulfillment of a prophecy. Neither the White people nor the North American Indians saw them as events that would alter the political, social, and economic life of western Europe and that of the Indians of the New World.
    But there were troubles from the start, troubles to the south. The White people didn’t continue on to the Far East as they had intended—they stayed. After them came shipload upon shipload of other White people. Their numbers and strength grew. Within a few generations these bands grew to nationhood, bigger and stronger than the North American Indian nations.
    They grew as did the Weendigoes in Anishinaubae mythology. Whereas the Weendigoes of mythology roamed the land only in winter and could be thwarted, this new breed roamed the land the year round, ravenous and voracious beyond belief, devouring not only the flesh, blood, and bones of its victims but their souls and spirits as well. Unable ever to allay their never-ending hunger, the new Weendigoes ravaged the land and its forests and fed upon animals.
    As if there were not enough blood and flesh and bones for them all, the Weendigoes turned on one another. The English Weendigo forced the French Weendigo to give in; the American Weendigo rose up against its English father and forced it back to Europe, and then fought the Spanish Weendigo and sent it reeling into Central America.
    The American Weendigo became a nation. Still it wasn’t satisfied. It needed more land, just a little more and then it would be satisfied, happy, glutted. It went westward, killing, destroying the Indians who fought back to keep what the Great Mystery had given them. “Just a little more,” the Weendigo promised the Indians of the Ohio Valley. “Just a little more, then more.”
    North of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, the Anishinaubae peoples were uneasy. There were rumours that the American Weendigo coveted the land that the English Weendigo still retained on this continent.
    In the spring of 1812 a messenger from Christian Island arrived in Couchiching, where the Anishinaubae peoples of the Lake Simcoe region had their summer town. The messenger, called a
mazhinawae
by the Anishinaubae peoples, told the chief and his people that the people at Christian Island had received word from the Owen Sound Anishinaubae that Tecumseh wanted all warriors to gather in Couchiching in one hundred days. Tecumseh himself would attend the meeting.
    There was no time to lose. The Lake Simcoe Anishinaubae peoples sent their courier to Parry Island. Couriers went from village to village along the north shore to