Preface
I remember sitting in a coffee shop with my girlfriend during the spring of 1993. It was a cool clear day. We were discussing the Undergraduate Philosophy Degree that I was about to complete that summer and of our plans for the future. At one point or another our conversation turned to my aspirations as a young philosopher. I also remember telling her that I had recently become very curious about my Aboriginal ancestry.
I grew up in a typical middle-class French-Canadian family environment, with, I guess, typical middle-class French-Canadian values. I had even thought of becoming a Roman-Catholic priest when I was a teenager. My father’s family first arrived from France in the early 1600’s. My mother’s father was from Québec and her mother from Northern Ontario. My maternal Grandmother was of Ojibwe ancestry that originated in Nipissing Territory. Unfortunately my grandmother died when I was ten years old and I never had a chance to speak with her about our Ojibwe roots.
My mother' Aboriginal ancestry was always spoken of as something far back in the past, something that happened in the last century. And that’s how it was as I grew up. My mother had never described herself as part Ojibwe, but rather only as a French-Canadian woman. As I sat there talking about my family history with my girlfriend, a peculiar thought sprang to mind, “I am part Native.” This may sound like a simple conclusion, evident from my ancestry, but for me, at that moment, it was a completely new realization. Until that moment in time I had not thought of myself as being part Native. I’m still not sure why I started to talk about these things on that spring day.
At that point in my life I did not know any Aboriginal people. As I sat drinking my coffee I began to talk about the work that I would like to do in the future. Part of this work included learning more about myself as an Aboriginal person. I fantasized aloud about meeting traditional people, of learning the ceremonies and the various aspects of their worldview. But at that time I had no idea where these people could be found. In my mind, traditional Aboriginal people were a vanishing breed who had been assimilated into the larger American and Canadian culture. The media told me so, and I believed it.
I also spoke of my interest in examining Aboriginal philosophies from a philosophical perspective rather than an anthropological or ethnological perspective. I had recently read John (Fire) Lame Deer’s book, Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions (1972), and was struck by the depth of his words. Unfortunately for me, I thought ¾ as this book had been written in the early 1970’s ¾ that surely the traditional Aboriginal person no longer existed. Around the same time I also read Robert Pirsig’s Lila, An Inquiry Into Morals (1991).
Robert Pirsig is famous for his first novel, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, An Inquiry Into Values (1974). This book overwhelmed me. I was nineteen when I first read it and I was at a complete loss to understand what he was saying on those pages. Initially this novel struck me as a simple travel-log, the story of a father and son on a journey of discovery as they crossed the great expanse of America in search of the Pacific Ocean. But throughout the novel Pirsig refers to his alter ego, Pheadrus. Pheadrus speaks of his process of learning, his questions about ‘Quality’ and ‘Value’. He refers to various Western and Eastern philosophies; thoughts that were completely alien to me at that time. I was so captured by this novel that I must confess that it alone led me into academic philosophy. I consciously chose all my undergraduate courses, with Eastern Philosophy as my area of concentration, based on the issues and ideas that Pirsig wrote about in Zen.
It took eleven long years of part-time university study but finally, in the summer of 1993, at the age of thirty, I re-read Zen for what must have been the twentieth time. I finally understood the point that Pirsig was making in his book — that ‘Quality’ and ‘Value’ are the fundamental building blocks of reality and a belief that a subject/object system is necessary to understand the world is metaphysically faulty.
Pirsig’s second novel, Lila, An Inquiry Into Morals (1992) has also had a profound effect on me. Among other subjects, this novel discusses many aspects of Aboriginal metaphysics which I had never thought of before. Very much like my experience with Pirsig’s first novel, Lila captured my imagination. Intuitively I understood that this novel would lead me into graduate work. It is rather humorous to think that while I was discovering Pirsig’s brand of Aboriginal metaphysics, I was also in the process of formulating a thesis proposal on a phenomenological examination of the Upanishads for my Masters Degree in Philosophy. I had found myself in the impossible position of thinking about Aboriginal philosophies while planning work in Eastern philosophy.
Not long after I started graduate studies I felt completely ambivalent about my work. I approached my thesis supervisor and asked for his counsel. After explaining my feelings to him, he told me that it was time for me to leave academic philosophy and pursue my own Aboriginal heritage. He was very supportive of my ideas to examine Aboriginal philosophies. He said simply, “We have taught you all that we can.” With that I withdrew from the philosophy program and decided to enter Native Studies.
To my surprise, and I must confess my girlfriend’s also, we ended up in Peterborough, Ontario, basically on a whim. We had visited earlier during the summer of 1994 and it just felt right. We moved and in the fall I began my classes.
The clearest memory I have of those first days at Trent University is sitting in the “Algonkian (Anishinaabe) Identity” course wondering what I was doing in Peterborough. I had spent many years struggling through my B.A. in Philosophy only to find myself at a new university effectively starting all over again by taking the pre-requisite undergraduate courses for a degree in Native Studies. My girlfriend had quit her job; we had both left our families behind and had found ourselves in a place where we knew nobody. All I could think of as I waited for class to begin was: “Am I crazy? My girlfriend is at home alone, we’re broke, and here I am studying Aboriginal people.” At that moment the instructor, Paul Bourgeois, entered the class. After introducing himself, explaining the structure of the course and encouraging us to introduce ourselves, one by one, he proceeded to give us a short lecture on the meaning of Anishinaabe identity. As I sit here looking at my notes from his first lecture I can’t help but laugh a little. I only wrote down two things: ‘Encourages the use of ‘I’ in essays’ and the question he wanted each of us to answer at the end of the course, ‘Who am I?’
Concerning the use of ‘I’ in essays, I was surprised to say the least. I had been trained in academic philosophy never to use ‘I’ in my papers. This was based, I was taught, on the fact that one should never include one’s opinions or beliefs because the study of philosophy must be objective. And that “Who am I?” in my notes? To tell you the truth, I ended up spending a lot of time wondering about that. I wondered about my possible place in the Aboriginal world. In my mind I was a French-Canadian guy with some Aboriginal ancestry. Was there something here for me? Would I be considered another ‘Wannabe’: somebody attempting to be something they were not? Nobody had ever asked me who I was before, and I was curiously at a loss for an answer to ‘the question.’
I received my first hint to the answer later that winter before Christmas. Paul Bourgeois invited me to his place in the country to observe a Sweat Lodge Ceremony. I arrived there with some tobacco, on the advise of a new friend, and I gave it to Paul once I entered his home. He accepted it and shook my hand. I was very nervous.
The rest of the evening is pretty much a blur, but I do remember a few things. I remember that it was very, very cold that night. The people who had come out to take part in the Ceremony where all standing around the fire as they were given the Teaching of the Sweat Lodge. After the Teaching, they undressed, and one by one they entered the Lodge. The heated rocks were put inside and the tarps were lowered over the doorway. After a few moments of speaking with the fire-keeper, I walked over quietly and tried to hear what was going on inside. All I could hear was the hushed whisper of people speaking. And then I heard a sound that has forever changed my life: I heard the Drum as the people inside the Lodge started to sing. I began to cry. Just like that. At that moment I felt like I had been away from my home for a very long time, unable to contact my family, and had finally found my way back. The experience was that intense.
It took a long time for me to understand what happened that night. I spent many hours with traditional Teachers and others discussing my emotional response to the sound of the Drum. Many told me that the Drum’s voice has a way of awakening one’s spirit, and that was perhaps what had happened to me. Perhaps. But I was still full of doubt and uncertainty about ‘Who am I?’
The following spring I received an e-mail from Paul Bourgeois asking me if I would like to help with another Sweat. Unfortunately, I received the e-mail a day too late. I was very disappointed. I wrote back: “If you need help with another Sweat, please, please, please, call me on the phone.” A few days later he did call and asked if I wanted to help. I was delighted and agreed. “There’s only one thing,” he said. “It’s in Alabama.” He explained that one of his students was Cherokee from Alabama and that he had asked him to go down and do a Sweat for his people.
A few nights before the trip I had a dream that I died in a terrible car crash. My sense of impending death was so intense that I made my Will when I awoke. A few days later (a little nervous) I left for Alabama to take part in my first Sweat. The expression ‘Sometimes you have to travel far to find yourself’ took on a lot of significance for me on that trip.
I remember clearly, as I sat in the damp, hot darkness of the Sweat Lodge in Alabama, of looking up and seeing the faces of dozens of old Aboriginal people looking in from above, as if the top of the Lodge was open. I could see them, old men and women, all leaning in to look at us. And they were all smiling. I intuitively recognized them as my ancestors witnessing the return of one of their descendants to the ancient tradition. I felt connected to my Anishinaabe family for the first time.
And that is how I started on this path. I have met those traditional Aboriginal people that I had dreamed of, and it is through them that I have discovered my Anishinaabe heart. My relationship with Paul Bourgeois has deepened over the past few years to such an extent that, as he has said to me, our respective roles as teacher and apprentice has evolved to a new level.
The line between teacher and student becomes blurred sometimes when teacher and student become involved with teaching and learning. My involvement with D’Arcy Rheault is a good example of this occurrence. D’Arcy, initially was a student of mine in an undergraduate course, and later became an apprentice in our traditional culture. However, D’Arcy became a valued colleague in a mutual relationship of teaching and learning. In particular, D’Arcy was helpful in the many discussions on the philosophical implications of Ojibwe Odewegewin [the way of the drum].[1]
Paul has shared a great deal of his knowledge about Anishinaabe tradition and Ceremony and I have shared my knowledge of academic philosophy with him. Recently, I was deeply moved when I heard him describe our relationship as a “spiritual partnership.” Since that first trip to Alabama we have travelled often together, and it is during those voyages, usually driving in the middle of the night, that we have discussed many important and profound ideas, many of which are now part of this book.
The people that have been central to my traditional education have all spent many years learning from the Niswi-Ishkodeng Midewigaan (Three Fires Midewiwin Society), a contemporary Anishinaabe spiritual society organized by Edward Benton-Banai in the late 1970’s. I first attended the ceremonies of the Niswi-Ishkodeng Midewigaan in Bad River, Wisconsin in the spring of 1995. I spent four days sitting close to the ceremonial teaching Lodge listening to Chief Edward Benton-Banai recite and explain many Teachings. I have continued to learn from many people and this work is the result of that relationship.
This is only part of my story. The rest of this book reflects some of what I have learned since that trip to Alabama and those first Spring Ceremonies. It is incomplete, I am sure; nevertheless, it expresses the little I know about the depth and beauty of Anishinaabe philosophy and its impact on my life.
I must say that as I wrapped up the final research, about to begin writing, I became acutely aware of the process that lay before me. I felt completely unprepared for this project. I have only spent a very short time learning some of what I discuss in these pages since I came to the tradition later in my adult life. I approached one of my traditional Teachers for advise about writing this book and he told me to just take it easy, that everything would work out. So I’ve decided to relax and see what happens.
I have spent nearly three years researching and writing this book. I have discussed many traditional Teachings with Elders, traditional Teachers and apprentices. I have also asked them for direction in the research and writing of this book. In the fall of 1995 I went out and Fasted for two days for guidance in my academic work. In the end I found that my academic life and my personal life could not be separated. This realization led me to the conclusion that I must take personal responsibility for anything that I may write and discuss within these pages since these words come out of my own process of reflection. I am on a journey like all other beings. My life courses along a path set out for me by Gzhe-mnidoo; a life course I must discover from moment to moment. It is with this understanding that I began this journey, and it is also with this understanding that I accept the new knowledge that I am continually discovering about my own Anishinaabe culture.
This new knowledge is constantly coming to me. Even as I wrote these pages I continued to learn. My original rough draft has changed so many times that I have almost lost track of my original intentions. It seems that every time I sat down to continue my work, some new experience, Teaching or understanding would force its way to the front of my mind and spirit. I found myself perpetually re-writing my work, adding and removing whole sections. The title of this book, “Anishinaabe Mino-Bimaadiziwin (The Way of a Good Life)” came to me only as I was finishing my final draft. Originally, I intended to write a book on the epistemology of the Anishinaabeg, but something told me that I had to step further back to find a primary foundation. Initially, I thought of metaphysics but that didn’t feel right either. I needed something from the Anishinaabeg and not the Greeks. Finally, I realized that I had to speak about my own life and my journey of learning rather than try to objectify Anishinaabe philosophy, as my academic training had taught me to do. This is not to say that these two methods are in opposition; rather, that an examination of Primary Experiential Knowledge precludes the necessity for a personal relationship with the knowledge that is being gathered and examined. This book, as an exercise of inquiry and examination is, of course, specific in-so-far as I make definite statements about what I have found. Yet, I never stand apart from this knowledge, objective and distant, for the sake of academically-defined methodological integrity. I am the knowledge I speak of — it forms the very being of my life.
The purpose of this work then is to examine and apply Primary Experiential Knowledge as a philosophical tool of exploration. This methodology is new in academic philosophy, as best as I can tell, since I am moving away from a traditional objective philosophical method. Research and learning for an Anishinaabe person includes more that an investigation of the external world. It also includes those revealed insights that happen within; insights that are presented as gifts by the Spirit, gifts that transcend the constraints of space-time. I am not talking about the usual steps in a rational investigation, like thinking about the Teachings or some empirical observations and finding commonality or conceptual order. Rather, I am speaking of the insight that has been given to me by my Teachers, particularly in my dreams, during my Fasting experiences and in Ceremony.
That is the scope of this effort: my own reflections on what I have learned. In the end, I can only speak for myself. Mino-Bimaadiziwin is the Way of a Good Life; therefore I only speak for one particular life: my life.
D’Arcy Rheault
Peterborough, Ontario (Mississauga Territory), August 21, 1998
reviewed April 2003