When Everybody Called Me Gabe-bines,
"Forever-Flying-Bird":

Teachings from Paul Buffalo

Leech Lake. Source: Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe

They travelled around according to the seasons in those days. My first father, my real father -- Buffalo, Jim Buffalo⁽²⁾ -- came up the river from Ashland⁽³⁾ with a group of Indians. From Wisconsin they came up through the rivers of Duluth. That's O-ni-gá-míi-sIn, Duluth. They came up by canoes⁽⁴⁾ and they met the tribe at Cloquet, by the Fond du Lac Reservation.⁽⁵⁾ There they had big powwows and everything. They met all the reservation tribes at the gathering there, and the great chief Pezeke spoke to all the chiefs.⁽⁶⁾

Ojibway Indian landing at Walker, ca. 1890. Creator: Edward Augustus Bromley (1848-1925)   Collections Online   Minnesota Historical Society Location No. E97.35 p15 Negative No. 25595

Pezeke, "Buffalohead Chief," was my grandpa.⁽⁷⁾

He was a chief of a group of Ojibwa in Wisconsin, and was one of the chiefs of the Great Lakes. Each of the chiefs took care of the tribe⁽⁸⁾ of the area where they lived. Each area had a chief who was the same as a representative or spokesman. These chiefs were spokesmen for the tribe of where they were appointed or elected from. They were spokesmen for the tribe, for the local people, and signed treaties with the whites. My great-grandfather signed the Rice Treaty and a lot of those other treaties. Buffalohead chief was good at speaking to councils. Men didn't demand to be a chief, they were picked as a great man. Pezeke was a great man. Pezeke was Jim and Henry Buffalo's grandpa.

Jim Buffalo and his brother Henry continued on from the gathering at Cloquet to Leech Lake, coming up the La Prairie River. My mother and dad met on the Mississippi River, at White Oak Point.⁽⁹⁾ After they met, my dad went with my mother's family and helped them. He helped paddle the canoe up the river, and then he helped mom cut wood and all that.⁽¹⁰⁾

In the summer of 1902, when I was about to be born,⁽¹²⁾ my folks were searching for a living⁽¹³⁾ along the Mississippi River. A group of relatives split off and went north to Third River, up by Lake Winnibigoshish.⁽¹⁴⁾ My mom and dad kept going east on the Mississippi. They were going down the Mississippi, looking, searching, for berries, blueberries. They were looking to see where there were going to be raspberries. They were looking to see where there were going to be berries of all kinds. You can find them anywhere now, but then they were looking for berries and plums.

About the time they reached the place they first met, Náy-mI-tIg-o-mii-shíi-shi-káhn, White Oak Point, my mother said, "There's my pain." We were paddling down the river. She told my dad, "You better stop." In a little while the old man put up the wigwam, with just a few poles. There I was. That was a fast deal, boy!

There are not very many born like I have been born. I'm summer-born.⁽¹⁵⁾ Some people are winter-born, some of them are born in the fall, some people are born in the spring. That has something to do with the weather. Summer-born people seem to have some sort of a feeling when a storm is coming. They seem to know that something's going to happen by the act of the weather. They feel how the breezes change and these waves of heat come in, and they know when a storm's coming by the action of clouds and the stars the night before. They seem to know ahead of time what the weather's going to be. And when I saw them predicting things, telling ahead of time what was going to happen, I always asked them, the summer-born elders, "How did you know?"

"Well," they told me, "the summer-borns have a nerve in their body that telegraphs them. And that nerve that telegraphs in their body, a nerve on the knee or on the hand or in some joints of their hand, tells them that maybe this storm is coming. They know by studying their mind that there are going to be some changes in the weather. And they know that too by the action of the sun and the moon. They feel it."

Summer-born people are special because they take time to build up their blood for the winter. You know why? In their first months they get to eat a little more vegetation. What they get to eat is heavier on the vegetation. They get to eat heavy food. But they're not any better⁽¹⁶⁾ than the winter-born. A winter-born is not any better either.

But the summer-born can feel it quicker on the rheumatic nerves, because they're more affected in rheumatic matters and they can feel that. They're more stricken with illness too, if they don't have their blood build up.

The summer-borns run low on the heat in the winter, but when the heat comes, the summer-born can take in more heat. And in the same way the cold weather doesn't bother the winter-born at all. It stands to reason, but that's a point you can't point out, hardly.

My grandfather, Ni-o-gáa-bó, always told my mother, "Someday you'll have two children. You take care of those two. You'll have a boy and a girl. You take care of them." Later on, after she met my dad, she did have two children, a boy and a girl. She was a little girl when she came to them, the old people, Ni-o-gáa-bó and her grandmother, at Five-Mile-Point. She was just a little girl when she was told that. Then, later on, she did have a boy and a girl. When she settled down and got married she had just what that guy predicted -- it was a boy and a girl, me and my sister Mary.

My mother wondered all the time, "I wonder how did he figure that out?"

How did he figure that out?

Chippewa Indian camp with Indian woman and children, ca. 1900.   Collections Online Minnesota Historical Society Location No. E97.31 r58 Negative No. 59662

I don't remember my first dad because he died just about when I was born. They say he was always dressed up in a white shirt. He was always in a vest too. He was always wearing a watch chain.⁽¹⁷⁾ He didn't care about losing it. He didn't worry about that. My mom told him, "You'll lose your watch."

"But I have to have a watch," he'd tell her.

He talked Indian, but he was a breed. He was Buffalohead Chief's grandchild. He was a very wise man. And that's my first father; that's my dad.

He and my uncle Henry came up the river together. Henry made it up to Leech Lake, and got married up there too. He married ChI-nó-dIn, "Big Wind," "Big Storm."⁽¹⁸⁾ Katie Buffalo was her English name, and they got along together. She did beadwork. She made quilts. She made moccasins and everything. And my uncle didn't have to do much. She told him one time to go down in the hay meadow and start tying the wild hay. He went, but snuck away. Never did come back.

Indians at Walker, ca. 1925.   Collections Online   Minnesota Historical Society Location No. E97.1 r208 Negative No.

I can remember the vest of my mother when I was about two years old. When I first really noticed her she was pretty young. She was getting grey, but she was well-dressed and right in style. She was young-looking and slender.

My mother was an herbalist and a doctor of midwife doctoring. She knew the nature of Indian medicine.⁽¹⁹⁾ She knew how much it takes, how much medicine to put in a mixture. Wuaay!⁽²⁰⁾ She doctored white people and everybody. My mother did a good job. She was not a sinner. She was a good person and was well-liked. My mother sure was read-up⁽²¹⁾ in Indian! She knew the Indian ways. She lived with the Indians and learned from them. She was born and raised and lived for eighty-six years with the Indians.

My mother raised me, but by the time I was born she already had her two arms pulling in different directions -- one was pulling toward the Indian way, and the other was pulling toward the white way. So she was right in the middle. She took both. She took the Christianity of Churches and then she brought in the Indian teaching of the Great Spirit and put them together. She was a Catholic, yea. She became a Catholic because her sister was a breed, half-white half-Indian. Her sister told her, "You should be a Catholic. You're good enough to be a Catholic." So my mother took a blessing with holy water too. When the priest came, which he did once a month, he put the blessed holy water on my mother: "You're baptized."

That's how she became a Catholic.

But she still believed that the Great Spirit gave us the world to live in, that the Great Spirit gave you life! In the Christian Book the Great Spirit says, "I'll be with you anywhere you think of me. Who remembers me, who believes in me, I'll be unto him." That's the same way it is in Indian.

"That's a big thing," she would tell us. "It's true, and from here on there's no excuse for you not to believe in these things. I have been able to understand things. When I was a girl, my father and mother died. They were giving the Indian belief to me already by the time they died, and then I went out to the world alone. Here I am." And she was eighty-four years old when she told me that. She had a rough time, but she didn't complain. I think that through her way of life she used the best of both the Indian and the white worlds.

All this time my Mother, my sister, and I lived with the old couple on the west end of Leech Lake near Five-Mile point. We travelled around a lot by canoe and I remember that one time we went to Leech River. We all just camped there at first, and then later on we made cabins, log cabins. We camped along the river, years ago, before that time I can remember. And I was little then, very little. I was just born.

In later time we still travelled by canoes because there were no roads except in a few places. There was game that was something to be seen! Every morning we'd see the wild life. And that natural wildlife was our food.

Shore of Bear Island, Leech Lake, Cass County, ca. 1900.   Collections Online   Minnesota Historical Society Location No. MC3.1L r10 Negative No. 14931

We trapped some of the animals and took them up to the fur buyers, which was at that time a station by the Indian trading posts at Federal Dam.⁽²²⁾ That's where we got our salt and salt pork. We had rock-salt, busted all up, those days. We got rock-salt out of the barrels of salt pork. They⁽²³⁾ would re-boil and refine that. That made good salt, when it was busted up. "Coarse salt" we called it.

In those days Peterson Homestead and John S. Smith's place were the only places on the Leech River. Those were the only two who lived on that river year 'round. Years ago my father and my grandpa moved in there too, but they didn't stay. I think my father's buried there, along the Leech River.

Pioneer log cabin, probably near Walker, ca. 1900.   Collections Online   Minnesota Historical Society Location No. MC3.3 r1 Negative No. 10079

My mother was a little light-skinned, and everything like that, and that's why she had a hard time at Ni-o-gáa-bó's. They wanted her to work at washing and cooking, and, anyhow, she worked too hard. Everybody told her, "That's too hard of a work you do." It was too hard for her younger age. Those people were wealthy,⁽²⁴⁾ but they were still putting too much work on her. And eventually she was wise enough to take off.

Cooking supper, Chippewa Indian camp, ca. 1890. Creator: Truman W. Ingersoll   Collections Online   Minnesota Historical Society Location No. E97.32 p1 Negative No. 12885

My mother was still pretty young at the time -- at the time she stayed with the older Indians near Five-Mile Point -- but by then she was already very religious and had learned to pay attention to o-náa$-chii-gáy, unusual signs.⁽²⁵⁾ When it comes to religion the Indians have always believed in their religion full in mind. And they believe in seeing things, natural signs. They dream of things. They hear things. They see things. And by this -- by seeing, and hearing, and dreaming things -- they get results.

That o-náa$-chii-gáy is something that's coming to you that you notice -- that's the sign. That's "the sign that's going to be with you." That's o-naa$-chii-gáy, and because of that my mother left the older people she lived with at Leech Lake. There was no water one time and my mother was supposed to go down to the lake and get some. She was lonesome for her own mother. She didn't have a mother any longer, and she knew all the rest of the young folks around there had a mother and father. "How nice it is to be with a father and mother," she thought. She remembered her mother. And when she was thinking about her mother the woman of the house she was staying at, her grandmother, told her, "There isn't any water in the pail, in the buckets, the water buckets. Go ahead and take one of the water pails and go right down to the lake and dip a pail full of water."

Ojibway woman carrying water, ca. 1920. Creator: Roland Reed   Collections Online   Minnesota Historical Society Location No. E97.32 r1 Negative No. 101850

They used about a ten-quart pail in those days, and she had to walk down to the lake with that in the dark. She had to go about a half a block, or a block, yea, about a block or half a block, and that night it was very windy on that trail. Once she got down to the lake she had to step down onto the rocks. All the canoes were out of the water, and everything was put away for the night. She stood on the lake, looking out to the lake with tears in her eyes, wondering where her mother was. And all she could hear was a woman's voice repeating,

"Oh, my little girl."

"Oh, my little girl."

"Oh, my little girl."

She heard that just as plain as she could, and she stopped crying. She stopped crying, stood there a while, and never heard anything more. She was just right above the waters, you know, and she heard that voice out into the lake. The lake was rough too.

She dipped that water into her pail and took it to the house where we lived. Then she sat right there and thought. She said, "Maybe my mother doesn't want me to be here."

So she thought she would go to her sister-in-law.

The older people we lived with on Five-Mile Point trained her in the Indian way, but they also abused her, and worked her. My mother realized that she worked too much and that it was time for her to go her own way. "They're never satisfied for what I do," she thought to herself. She called me and she put me on her hand. And I had a sister, my sister Mary. She followed us. My sister was bigger. She walked behind, alone.

Leech Lake.
Source: Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe

I believed we stopped first with the Josh Drumbeaters who lived at the outlet of the Leech River at Federal Dam.⁽²⁶⁾ They lived alongside the high road in a log house. There were two places we stayed that she'd always tells about, but I could hardly remember much about that. I was pretty young at that time. She stopped at the Drumbeaters when she made it away from those older people's place at Leech Lake, but she didn't stay there too long because the Drumbeaters didn't believe much in Christianity. They believed in Indian there. At that time my mother believed in the Catholic Church more than anything else.

The mother there, Mrs. Drumbeater, was my mother's mother's relative. I think she was her cousin. They were some sort of a cousin, a second cousin or something. Mrs. Drumbeater and my mother were always together though, and Mrs. Drumbeater always called me "nÍng-wa-nÍss," nephew.⁽²⁷⁾

Their boy, Jimmy Drumbeater, is still living yet, and when they come to see me, they know I'm related to them. And they always think a lot of me because we're cousins. We've seen such hard times in our days. We also heard about the olden days from my mother and my aunt, when they were talking together, and we saw how life was in my mother's area, from the olden days until now.

We had an aunt in a town about ten or fifteen miles away, and my mother footed that ten or fifteen miles with my sister and me.⁽²⁸⁾ She went to Betsie Crow in Bena. That was my aunt. That'd be my mother's sister-in-law, Jim Buffalo's sister.

Leech Lake.
Source: Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe

From there on then she lived in a happy home. She found someone.

See, she didn't give up when she heard those unusual sounds to her ears, the sound of the lake. There are people like that, people who believe in signs like that. It comes to them naturally. There are some people that don't believe in anything, and when they do see something real, then it's a shock.⁽²⁹⁾

A sign like my mother saw is a kind of a warning. It's something unusual telling you that you have to be careful.

Or . . . that you have to do something.

2. Paul Buffalo's biological father was Jim Buffalo. His mother later remarried, to Jack Nason. See Ch. 36, "Jack Nason, My Dad. My Step-Dad."

3. Ashland, Wisconsin.

4. For more information on travelling in the canoe days see Ch. 3, "Canoe Days."

5. Fond du Lac Indian Reservation in Minnesota.

6. See Ch. 5, "Chiefs and Councils" for descriptions of chiefs and their speeches; for information on big powwows and other large gatherings see Ch. 23, "Ni-mi-day-win: 'Come and Dance, Come and Sing--Living and Spirits Alike.'"

7. Older people were called "grandpa" or "grandma," even if they were not related. "Great-" or "great-great-" was not used when speaking to an elder. Pezeke, Gichi-waishke, of La Pointe on Madeline Island in Wisconsin, was Paul Buffalo's great-grandfather.

"Chief Buffalo, known as Bichiki and Gichi-waishke, was a revered figure in the history of Ojibwe people in the western Lake Superior region. Born around 1759 at La Pointe on Madeline Island along the south shore of the lake, he was a member of the Loon clan. He became an eloquent leader for his people in dealings with the British and American governments."

"In addition to the Treaty of 1854, which contained a provision setting aside a reserve of land for the chief in the future site of Duluth, Buffalo also signed the treaties of 1837, 1842, and 1847, which ceded land across what would become the territories and later states of Wisconsin and Minnesota. In 1852 Buffalo and others made a long journey to Washington, D.C. to protest the policies of Minnesota territorial officials who sought to remove all Ojibwe people from Wisconsin into Minnesota, centered on a government Indian agency at Sandy Lake. In part through Buffalo's actions policies were changed, resulting in the 1854 treaty, which created permanent homes in reservations throughout the region."

"After his death in September 1855 Chief Buffalo was honored by federal officials by being buried in a tomb constructed at government expense at La Pointe."

"Two busts in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., were long thought to be of Chief Buffalo of La Pointe, however recent research has shown that they are more likely to be of another Chief Buffalo from Leech Lake, Minnesota. The busts were based on a clay model by the Italian sculptor Francis Vincenti, done in the presence of the subject in February 1855. The date is what makes clear that the chief could not be Chief Buffalo of La Pointe, since the chief was not in Washington at that time. The only Chief Buffalo there then was the chief from Leech Lake, who came to negotiate the Treaty of February 22, 1855. For more information on the busts, see the U.S. Senate website at <http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/art/artifact/Sculpture_21_00002.htm#bi>."

"A thorough discussion of the problems of identifying the chief on whom the busts were modeled can be found at <https://chequamegonhistory.wordpress.com/2013/05/26/chief-buffalo-picture-search-introduction/>." -- "Chief Buffalo," Onigamiinsing Dibaajimowinan-Duluth's Stories, Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. Accessed 25 May 2018.

See also "Chief Buffalo's Reservation," and . . .

See also J. O. Holzhueter, "Chief Buffalo and Other Wisconsin-related Art in the National Capitol," Wisconsin Magazine of Art, 56:4 (1973), pp. 284-289.; Paul Negri, "The Treaty of La Pointe and the Chief Buffalo Grant," (unpublished MS., University of Minnesota, Duluth Library, n.d., E99 .C6 N44X).

8. The bands and local groups of individuals within their respective areas.

9. Near Deer River, Minnesota. See Map of the Leech Lake Indian Reservation.

10. He was performing what anthropologists call "brideservice." Cf., Ch. 24, "Courtship, Marriage, and Living in with the In-Laws."

11. For more information see Ch. 24, "Courtship, Marriage, and Living in with the In-Laws."

12. Paul was thought to have likely been born on 4 July 1900, and re-born in 1902. See footnote #3 in the "Introduction." Here he is talking about being born in 1902.

13. Hunting and gathering.

14. At the "Leech-Mississippi Forks," a little less than two-miles south of Ball Club Lake, one can continue down the Mississippi River towards Deer River, Cohasset, and Grand Rapids/La Prairie, or go up the Mississippi to where it enters Lake Winnibigoshish on its east side. The Third River Flowage enters Lake Winnibigoshish across the lake from Winnibigoshish Dam, on its northwestern corner. Cf. Map of the Leech Lake Indian Reservation.

15. For a discussion of summer-born vs. winter-born see Ch. 18, "Late-Autumn-Winter Camp," and Ch. 6, "Spring Move to the Sugar Bush."

16. This is a sociological "better" rather than a physiological "better."

17. Later on a man dressed like this, with a watch chain, appears in a vision. Cf., Ch. 34, "Fireballs, and 'The Black Shadow Man.'"

18. Ki-chI-nó-dIn.

19. Cf., Ch. 25, "'Self-Houses,' Sweat Houses, and Bloodletting," Ch. 31, "Spiritual Doctoring, Tipi-Shaking, and Bone-Swallowing Specialists," Ch. 32, "Medicine Men / Medicine Women," and Ch. 33, "Messengers and Unusual Events."

20. Whuaay and Wh^^h are expressions of great approval. They are often used to show support and admiration. xxxNOTE: Change this when Brian submits his transcriptions [ ^ ] is pronounced like the "u" in cut.

21. I.e., knowledgeable in traditional Indian ways, including medicine.

22. See Map of the Leech Lake Indian Reservation.

23. The old folks. Paul Buffalo carefully distinguishes between what he personally has done, and what others did. In this case the adults would take the salt from the salt pork barrels and work it into salt. At this point in time he was too young to help, thus he uses "they."

24. "Wealthy" means living comfortably in terms of basic food, shelter, and a few modest practical material possessions such as a gun, some kettles, an axe, and the like.

25. Unusual natural signs -- including dreams -- play a very important role in Anishinabe cultures. See also Ch. 26, "Dreams and Visions," Ch. 33, "Messengers and Unusual Events," and Ch. 34, " Fireballs, and The Shadow Man."

26. See Map of the Leech Lake Indian Reservation.

27. Generally traditional folks thought of relationships in terms of the kinship terms that they used to refer to one another rather than to the actual biological relationships. The point of reference in trying to translate biological relationships into English will generally be the Anishinabe linguistic term. However, since the kinship systems vary considerably, this is often quite difficult for non-Anishinabe speakers. Anishinabe peoples, for example, usually clearly separate cross-cousins (mother's brother's children and father's sister's children) from parallel cousins (mother's sister's children and father's brother's children). In the end, the most important factor is that they were related and that they commonly addressed each other by kinship terms rather than non-kinship terms. These kinship terms would be immediately understandable to all concerned.

28. The distance, walking, is about 7.6 miles.

29. If you do not believe in signs, then things happen and they come upon you unexpectedly. The belief is that one can anticipate what is going to happen by carefully observing the signs. Then, when what was foretold by signs actually happens, it is no surprise to you, and you are quite likely to be prepared for it as well as you can be.