MARRYING BEARS AND BEAVERS

AMERICAN INDIAN LAND ETHICS

AN OJIBWA CASE STUDY

by

J. BAIRD CALLICOTT
Professor

Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies Institute of Applied Sciences University of North Texas

based on a new book

AMERICAN INDIAN ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS: An Ojibwa Case Study by J. Baird Callicott and Michael P. Nelson

Prentice Hall
2004

AMERICAN INDIAN ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

I. Introductory Essay overview of environmental ethics worldview concept methodology: literary/philosophical tempered cultural relativism tenability not truth II. Ojibwa Narratives collected in 1903-1905 by William Jones, Ph.D. (American Indian) linguist, anthropologist Ojibwa transcriptions and (rough) English translations III. Interpretive Essay literary/philosophical analysis of narratives land ethics Ojibwa vis--vis Aldo Leopolds

Ojibwa: Algonkian speaking, woodland culture congregating during summer in fishing villages harvesting wild rice and making maple sugar also (among southern contingent) some cultivating of maize, squash, etc. dispersing to family hunting grounds during winter internal organization: no tribe-level gvt; clan-structure five major totems: crane, bear, loon, catfish, marten, wolf

At European contact living in the vicinity of Lake Superior, mainly to the southand northwest of the Lake

Ojibwa Texts, 2 volumes: 1817/1919 by William Jones (1871-1909) born of an Anglo-American father and Fox Indian mother in Oklahoma. educated at Hampton Institute, Harvard College, and Columbia University (Ph.D. under Franz Boas), was first Am Ind professional anthropologist. collected and transcribed Ojibwa stories north and west of Lake Superior, 19031905. accepted a position with the Field Museum in Chicago, and (???!!!) posted to Philippine Islands in 1907, there to be murdered by natives whom he had gone to study.

General scholarly goal

To test perennial claim that traditional American Indian peoples had (have) more environment-friendly attitudes and values than their European-American successorsthat they had (have) an environmental ethic.

Popular method: Interview contemporary representatives of traditional Am Ind cultures. Problems: subjective, idiosyncratic; liable to foreign influence and political spinning.
Ethno-historical method: examine historical and archeological records to ascertain traditional Am Ind environmental behavior. Problem: behavior often not in sync with attitudes and values.

The literary/philosophical method

Worldview (in which environmental attitudes and values is embedded) is collective and commonly held, not individual and personal. A cultures language and narrative heritage is a collective possession.

Analyze semantic and syntactical structure of Ojibwa language (borrowed from A. Irving Hallowell and others).
Plumb Ojibwa narrative heritage with an eye to both explicit and implicit assumptions about the nature of reality and the human place in and relationship to that reality.

The William Jones Ojibwa texts

collected at a relatively early date1st decade of 20th century before automobiles, snowmobiles, airplanes, radio, television. among people living in a remote areanorthwest of Lake Superior.

recorded, transcribed, and published in original (Ojibwa) language.

roughly translated into English (Joness plans to polish unfulfilled).

stories have a life of their ownquite literally so from an Ojibwa point of viewand thus remain relatively static in the midst of changes in other aspects of culture. Thus Jones texts provide a window into preColumbian Am In mind.

Our book contains thirteen stories from Joness Ojibwa Texts. Here I focus on two stories about marrying animals.

The Woman Who Married a Beaver Clothed-in-Fur

The Woman Who Married a Beaver

Simple plot line: Girl meets boy . . . No, 1st girl fasts & blackens preparing for an important encounter. After wandering afar, she met a man, who, later we learn, was in the form of a human being & who first invited her to his home (which was very nice and well furnished) and then asked her to be his wife. They lived very well by a lake and began to have children. Only then did she realize that she had married a beaver. Soon after they were visited by people; and her husband and children would go home with them and return with all sorts of giftskettles and bowls, knives, tobacco, and all the things that are used when a beaver is eaten. That explains their great wealth.

Nice home of the woman who married a beaver

Former home of the woman who married a beaver

Initial literary/philosophical plumbing of implicit and explicit assumptions in The Woman Who Married a Beaver

(1) Outward form is fluid and ambiguous, independent of essence. Even though the human woman evidently lives in the outward form of a beaver, she remains essentially human (thus to kill and eat her would have made cannibals of the people). (2) Human beings and animals, though essentially different, have similar affective and cognitive consciousnesses. (3) Reincarnation: the slain animals come back to life; or as the story first says, the people would slay the beavers, yet they really did not kill them; but back home would they come again. (4) The beavers profit by their intercourse with the people; they receive reciprocal gifts and accumulate great wealth.

The Woman Who Married a Beaver (continued)

The beavers were very fond of the people; in the same way as people are when visiting one another. Importantly, the woman herself never went home with the peopleuntil she grew old, whereupon she was discovered by a man who was paying a visit to her lodge, and he had reached in and felt that she was indeed a human being. Upon her return to her own kin, she told her story and brought back a message: Never speak you ill of a beaver! If you speak ill (of a beaver) you will not (be able to) kill one. The people heeded her advice: they never spoke ill of the beavers, especially when they intended hunting them. [For] if anyone regards a beaver with too much contempt, speaking ill of it, one simply (will) not (be able to) kill it. Just the same as the feelings of one who is disliked, so is the feeling of the beaver. And he who never speaks ill of a beaver is very much loved by it. . . . Particularly lucky then is one at killing beavers.

Clothed-in-Fur

Much more complicated plot. Clothed-in-Fur a human eligible bachelor. Goes to visit his grandmother and courted by Foolish Maidens (stock characters who appear in other stories). Escapes their pursuit by climbing various trees and riding on leaves. Hides in a rough ball that fills with blood of FMs trying to get him. Emerges all bloody and washes his fur coat in two lakes. Preliminary analysis: The issue is Who will CF marry? The FMs are foolish because they think that they are appropriate wives. When he finally escapes, he is transformed by a kind of rebirth episode (bloody emergence) into animal form: clothed-in-fur.

Clothed-in-Fur (continued)

CF meets and marries a series of women who too prove unsuitable; they variously cannot carry their loads, move camp, are messy he beats each with a stick and they reveal themselves to be a wolf, a raven, a porcupine, and a Canada jay. Then he meets a woman who is very good at making a fire & cooking the beaver he brought home, but refuses to eat it herself. He plants a poplar stick outside the lodge and hears her eating it and when he peeps out to see, his wife is revealed to be a beaver. Preliminary analysis: The whole plot concerns finding the appropriate species for CF to marry. Each wife-species episode also has a culture-hero creation subplot as CF names each species and declares x shall you be called by the people, sometimes adding here [habitat named] shall you live.

Clothed-in-Fur (continued)

By failing to follow a rule (putting a log over each watercourse he crosses), CF loses his beaver-wife and their children. Then he courts a bear woman who takes him to her village where her father is chief. There follow a couple of power duels (smashing a pole and a rock) with a brown bear (grizzly?) and a white bear(polar?)both curmudgeonlyfor her hand in marriage. CF prevails but has to pass a test: staying awake for 10 days, but fails and the bear village moves away while he sleeps. When he finds the bears, he kills them all w/ arrows except the cubs. Preliminary analysis: Another culture-hero creation episode in which formerly huge bears are reduced in size and the power relationship between people and bears is reversed, so that now people eat bears not vice versa.

Clothed-in-Fur continued

Meanwhile, back at the beaver lodge: CF is living there with his inlaws, including Muskrat, whom he takes a notion to eat. CFs father-in-law gives him permission to do so, but warns him: Dont break the joints at any place. After he had eaten, the (unbroken) bones were gathered up and put in the water; and after awhile Muskrat walked in alive. He kept eating various of his in-laws; oncejust to see what would happenhe broke a toe bone. That one came back to life but with an extra toe. Preliminary analysis: reincarnation again. correct treatment of bones: keep them intact; return them to their proper element; and they will be reclothed in flesh & fur.

Clothed-in-Fur (continued)

As in WWMB, the lodge is visited by people, who offer a pipe; and all the beavers smoke (except CF, of course), as a sign that they are willing to be killed. Thenobserving that the water level is lowthe people believe that they can just come and take beavers and so do not offer pipe. The beavers are offended and refuse to be killed. The people try the pipe again, but to no avail and bring dogs to help, but the beavers shoo them away. After several iterations of this, the beavers ask one old worthless dog, On what do they feed you? Answer: your livers. Then they allow themselves to be killed. Preliminary interpretation: The dogs were not fed the beavers bones.

Initial literary/philosophical plumbing of implicit and explicit assumptions in Clothed-in-Fur (1) CF, like the WWMB, is an emissary linking human society to specific animal societiesbeavers in both, also bears in CF. (2) The link is established through marriageand just as in human society, finding a wife of the right kind (clan/totem) is important. (3) In addition to respect (which WWMB elaborates more fully), the emphasis in CF is on the proper treatment of bones. In CF, respect is symbolized by offering the pipe. (An additional detail: the beavers laugh at the people with a full set of teeth.) (4) The bones should not be brokenand other stories indicate should not be burnedand should be returned to the habitat of the game animal so that it can be literally reincarnated.

So, whats up with these human-animal marriages?

According to Calvin Martin in Keepers of the Game, Nature, as conceived by the Ojibwa, was a congeries of societies: every animal, fish, and plant species functioned in a society that was parallel in all respects to mankinds. Joness Ojibwa narratives confirm this claim.

Human-animal marriages are the means that human society can enter into mutually beneficial relationships with various animal societies.

Between societies linked by marriage a gift economy can be set up. People give the animals what they cannot otherwise acquirevarious artifacts (kettles, knives), cultigens (tobacco,) and r-e-s-p-e-c-t. And the animals give people all they have to givetheir flesh and fur.

Belief in reincarnation makes it seem possible

Community membership as the foundation of ethics

In other words, mythic human-animal marriages widen the boundaries of the community to include non-human nature. From a communitarian point of view, community membership generates ethical duties and obligations. Joness Ojibwa stories clearly illustrate some of these duties: a proper attitude of respect and even affection reciprocal gift-giving proper treatment of bones

This suggests an interesting metaphysical hypothesis. The skeleton not the ephemeral soulis the enduring entity that survives death and reincarnates. Hence, its treatment is literally of the essence.

The centrality of transhuman social relationships in the Ojibwa narratives and the duties and obligations they entrain suggests a comparison with The Aldo Leopold land ethic. Leopold bases his land ethic on the premise that people are also members of a biotic community.

He follows Darwin in thinking that human ethics evolved to facilitate social unity and cooperation; and that as human society expanded in scope and complexity, ethics expanded apace. Now that ecology enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land, a land ethic is mandated. Which changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land respect for his fellow members and also for the community as such.

Similarities between the Ojibwa And Leopold land ethics

(1) greater-than-human (biotic) community concept as foundation of ethical duties and obligations. (2) fellow-members deserve respect (but can be killed and eaten). (3) assimilation of animal societies to human societies (in AL/LE mouse engineers and goose conventions). (4) personification of other-than-human beings (in AL/LE talking / debating / grieving geese aware of the WI statutes).

Differences between the Ojibwa And Leopold land ethics

(1) greater-than-human communities which generate duties are more restricted in O/LE, limited to specific (game) species. (2) Animals have duties to to people in O/LE, as illustrated in A Moose and His Offspring.

(3) assimilation of animal societies to human societies limited to observable behavior in AL/LE.
(4) personification of other-than-human beings also limited to observable behavior in AL/LEno pipe smoking / use of tools etc.

A Moose and His Offspring

Moose family has a youth (teenager), who disparages human speed

Wishes for more snowfall / warned by father that humans make use of bird-hawks and swans to magically augment speed. Hear drumming (magic) / receive pipe / all smoke except youth who knocks it away / hunters come and show their entrails (as hunger index) Hunters kill all the compliant moose, but youth flees, then bogs down in deep, crusted snow and is overtaken by dogs and hunter. Who does not kill him, but cuts off his nose. Others receive presents and return to life and enjoy them, while youth gets nothing.

Moral: people fulfilled their duties, so animal must fulfill his.

The fur, flesh, and bones of the Leopold and Ojibwa land ethics

Recall the metaphysical hypothesis that the essence of a being in the Ojibwa worldview is not the immaterial soul, but the skeleton.

Treat it as a metaphor for comparative worldview analysis. The fur and flesh of the two land ethicstheir outward formsdiffer; the skeleton, the bare bones is the same.

The flesh and fur of the Leopold land ethic is the language of evolutionary biology, ecology, and Humean communitarianism; the flesh and fur of the Ojibwa land ethic is the language of myth.

But the skeletal conceptual structure is the same: human and other-than-human beings are members of common communities, which generate ethical duties and obligations

Prentice Hall 2003