Cycles

He was a collector of stories, as beachcombers collect. He assembled some of them here, for the Anishinaabe—the people of First Nations.

Here is Mi-zhee-kay, the turtle who saved the world from the great flood. Here is Mishi-ginebig, the horned serpent who lives underwater, its shed skin symbolizing rebirth. Here is the fiercest of all,Misshipeshu, the Great Lynx with spines on its back, master of the water and adversary of the Thunderbird, master of the air. And others, all with tales.

These are stories that twist good and evil, forward and back, male and female, in the Two-Spirit world that transforms one thing into another. It is all here in the storyboard: the cycle becomes a transmutation of life and death, of non-human and almost-human. I watch them cycling ‘round and the painting becomes kinetic, a kaleidoscope of form and color. There is no right-side-up here; turn it as you wish.

These images magnify the oral tradition. We anthropologists collect them, stories and images alike. Henry Schoolcraft assembled tales from these Ojibwe, Franz Boaz from the Inuit, both of them reflecting our fascination with folklore a century back. Longfellow created his own story here: Hiawatha, the misnamed Ojibwe warrior, Manabozho. Stories worth telling, worth seeing in pictures.

Beachcombers, all of us, our collections keep these stories from washing away.

Ron Wetherington