The Little Menominee
Mama:ceqta:hsak (in the Menominee language)
Note: the colon signifies a long vowel in Mama:ceqta:hsak. (The 'a:' sounds like the 'a' in "fa:ther")
Mama:ceqta:hsak or The Little Menominee of James F. Frechette, Jr. Menominee Artist by David R. Wrone
With the editorial assistance of Michael J. Hoffman
Published under the auspices of the Menominee Clan Story
© 2006
Table of Contents
IntroductionWoodland Traditional Art | The Menominee | James F. Frechette, Jr | Story Telling
Mama:ceqta:hsak
Origin Story
The Clan System
Five Principle Clans: Bear, Golden Eagle, Wolf, Crane, Moose
Political & Social Dimensions Devine Gifts: Golden Eagle Spirit
Organizational Life of the Tribe
Dance of the Water Carrier: Elk | Speaker of the People: Bear
Celebration of the Future
Fox | Preparing for the Hunt: White Tailed Deer | The Successful Hunter: Wolf
Respect for things significant
The Fisherman: Loon | Judging the Maple Sugar:Beaver
Clan Obligations
Preparing for War: Winter Hawk | The Harvester: Moose | The Dance, Hulling the Rice: Raccoon | The Water Carrier: Elk
The Menominee Clan Structure
Introduction
James F. Frechette, Jr.’s wood carvings stands in two worlds, that of art and that of the Menominee culture. His artistry interprets Menominee culture and joins the two with fidelity. To grasp the meaning of these Little Menominee it is necessary to understand the cultural milieu from which they have emerged. I have drawn up this brief guide in the hope that understanding of the one world will make the other world more meaningful to you.
As with any effort to provide cultural understanding in so brief a compass, much has had to be omitted and much has had to be shortened to meet the practical use of the space available. It is hoped that a cultural perspective has been set down for you.
The hand carved figures are from wood, chiefly Menominee white pine, with some birch, ash, and other tribal species employed from time to time. They are painted with acrylic. Each feather, object, skin, drum, and so forth, is entirely from wood and authentic to the Menominee. The designs, colors, and forms are also genuine.
Woodland traditional art
The art of the Indian people of Wisconsin belongs to the Woodland cultural tradition. This is characterized by use of certain materials, designs, motifs, and colors taken from the region’s forests and waters that coalesce into a distinctive identity. Out of wood, for example, they formed over one hundred and fifty objects, ranging from canoes, cradles and maple sugar molds, to wigwams, feather boxes, and baskets, each decorated and made into elements of beauty. Numerous other categories exist, such leatherwork, quillwork, weaving, and copperwork. Woodland art is largely unknown by Americans whose minds are dominated by the great attention the media and scholars have given to the Southwest and Plains traditions. Many perhaps do not even realize that a fully developed art exists in Wisconsin, encapsulating the aesthetic ideal of the human species and worthy of appreciation, necessary to preserve, and ideal for collecting and displaying.
Menominee
One of six tribes on eleven reservations presently resident in Wisconsin the Menominee have had a continuous presence in the state that traces back to the beginning of time while in recent years they endured phases of non-Menominee history, French (1634-1763), British (1763-1783), United States territorial (1783-1848),and state (1848+). Indeed they came into being as a people—genesis—in the extreme northeast corner of the state along the banks of their beautiful and sacred Menominee River. Their name translates as "The People of the Wild Rice."
Menominee traditional lands extended from a portion of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan along Lake Michigan to Milwaukee, then sharply narrowing reached to the Mississippi River, including the cities of Marinette, Green Bay, Appleton, Marshfield, and La Crosse. Through a series of treaties with the United States, they ceded most of their domain, keeping a portion of their land to form their present reservation at the headwaters of the Wolf River where they have resided since 1852.
Menominee art not only belongs to the general themes of Woodland art, but also possesses distinctive cultural elements that clearly set it apart from the work of other tribes. One of these traits is wood carving.
Among the Menominee, a tradition of carved wooden figures existed, executed in an old style manner that the artist has drawn upon to express the cultural life of the people. So, too, the Menominee had developed a unique, intricate system of clans, highly complex, with origin accounts, functional structures, and cultural forms. Basically, the clan system served as the organizing principle of Menominee society around its structure that embraced politics, defense, family, economics, education, and other facets of life.
While the majority of the carvings discussed here are totems, or clan symbols two represent the origin story. Each clan figure unites in its form three elements: the clan symbol, the tradition of carved wooden figures, and the distinctive interpretation of that culture by Jim Frechette. He remarked:
Symbolism is an important part of any culture.
We all use symbolism in our lives. I think we
have to be careful not to place the value on the symbol
and forget about what it stands for.
Within Menominee society each Menominee had a place and a responsibility. For some members the defined tasks might be mundane and for others they might be much more demanding; yet, all duties, be they great or small, functioned only in a larger system of the tribal structure where all activities have to be referred to be ultimately understood. If the tribe was to achieve its purposes, everyone had to be governed by the ordering principles of the society. The story tellers, the pipe makers, the hunters, the cooks, the warriors, and on and on, had to function in order that all obtained a meaningful life. In that ordered whole the individual found his life enhanced.
The Menominee found liberty to be attained in the organizational life of the tribe, in the culture rightly related to. No idea is more fundamental to the cultural form than this intensely held love of personal freedom. The culture expresses it in a thousand ways. The first European explorers and traders to the tribe set down in letters and published in journals their perceptions of and experiences with the Menominee’s great love of freedom coupled with an abhorrence of slavery or other types of authoritarian forms.
James F. Frechette, Jr.
A Menominee born on the Menominee reservation Jim grew into adulthood when many tribal elders yet lived, men and women steeped in the tribal culture whose memories went back to the generation that had first moved onto the reservation. From them he acquired many insights and much knowledge of the old Menominee culture. From the elders, too, he received training in some of the traditional arts of the tribe, especially wood carving.
Mama:ceqta:hsak, or the Little Menominee, faithfully represents that traditional culture and art handed down to Jim. Each design, motif, color, and cultural instance is authentic, from the type of pipe in The Great Light Colored Bear’s hand, to the manner the leggings were laced, to the way the maple tree was tapped. Taken as a whole, they capture in art the traditional way of life as well as the culture of the Menominee.
Story telling
In accordance with the natural rhythm of the earth and the rule of time and the blessings of Grandfather’s gifts the vital tribal clan system unfolded. The Five Principal Clans depict the interpretation of this component. As we view each figure, we shall have the occasion to return many times to this striking element of inter-relationships within the order, but we direct our attention now to the method of cultural transmission.
The Menominee confronted the problem of how to transmit from one generation to the next their accomplishments, lore, religion, traditions, history, and insights into life gained at considerable difficulty and held to be significant. To meet this challenge, their culture developed the mechanism of story telling. It was the factor that established continuity on a rational basis and became the indispensable feature of their culture. Without the story-telling system, they perish; with it, they thrive.
How often do we pause in our daily affairs to contemplate what links one generation in society to the next? During the pace of our ordinary activities most of us rarely pose the question to ourselves, leaving the task more or less blindly to the erstwhile efforts of church, school, television, and the like. But the old time Menominee viewed the subject with great intensity, for it was ever a live issue for them, one they met with in their daily tasks and reticulated frequently in conversations.
The tribe gave elders the task of handing down the culture from one generation to another. Elders accomplished it by telling stories and legends, scores and indeed hundreds of tales repeated to youth whenever they found them and whenever opportunity arose. They repeated them "exactly" as they had received them from their elders, who in turn had received them from their elders all the way back to the beginning of time and the origin of the Menominee. Story telling had several characteristics that elevated it to an art. Elders accompanied the telling of stories not only with absolute fidelity to the tale as they had heard it, but also when a particular story involved natural, bird, or animal sounds and motions, they dramatically and accurately reproduced them along with gestures where appropriate.
Two illustrations of the ancient method of story telling convey the social sense and critical importance of this philosophy-art. In a summer camp of an evening with the fire banked into a bed of red coals, that fragment of celestial eternity (Grandfather’s fire or the sun), with the stars above stark and white against a black canopy of the heavens, tribal members, youth, and older Menominee, men and women flocked to hear once more exciting legends and stories. They would govern their lives by the principles they contained. At the same time they were witnessing as they participated in the preservation of the tribe as the words flowed forth. The elder began with the ritual opening words.
Another typical method involves a teaching story. After receiving a gift from the youth the story teller required the young person to stand before him so that he or she might focus and listen attentively. When the elder finished he would inquire of the youth: "What does the story mean?" If the youth failed to give the correct meaning, the elder would then re-tell the legend and at the conclusion once again propound the same question as before. The meaning of the story penetrated to the principle of the culture, a point not often obvious in a well told and thrilling story.
Story telling then had this secondary but vital benefit for the tribe. It sharpened the mind. To recount the story properly, an elder had to think; likewise, to listen in the right way, the youth or listener had to think. In the act of telling the story, the elder invigorated the culture; through this method, the life systems kept themselves constantly fresh and flexible.
In summary, the elders became the vitalizing element of the Menominee culture.
Mama:ceqta:hsak
The Little Menominee
When we first look at the carved wooden figures of Mama:ceqta:hsak they might appear to be a number of separate and distinct pieces, each isolated from the rest in both time and place. But this surmise would be a misconception. The Little Menominee precipitate out of the Menominee culture from which they draw all meaning. If approached from the perspective of the culture we can begin to understand each figure.
Menominee culture is a fundamental order of life, an idea made manifest by the artistry of Jim Frechette working in, of, and with that culture. He took a form ancient in the culture, interpreted it with fidelity, and thus begat The Little Menominee.
Each Little Menominee stands in relationship to other Little Menominee and all are part of the cultural whole. Of course, something so multi-faceted, so deep-rooted, and so extensive cannot be fully understood by a cursory look at an array of such exquisite carvings as these. A thick curtain rests between Menominee culture and us. By drawing it back a bit we can glimpse and partake of a portion of that culture and can begin to make the journey to understanding with some confidence.
Menominee Genesis
Ancestral Bear and Golden Eagle
The Menominee are a people with a beginning, a history, a present, and a future. The beginning sets forth the structural foundation of their culture that provides them not only with continuity up to the present, but also describes and defines the way they must act to meet the challenge that life throws at them as human beings. Our best understanding of them as a people will come to us if we listen to their story of origin.
Origin Story
Long ago when Grandfather made the earth and all therein He also created the many spirit beings. He gave these spirit beings the forms of animals and birds. The animals were underground beings and many of them were malevolent. The birds, mostly eagles and hawks, were the Thunderers and all of them were benevolent. The principal Thunderer is the Invisible Thunderer, and he is represented by the Golden Eagle.
Before people dwelt upon this earth, at a place where the Menominee River flows into Green Bay, The Great Light Colored Bear emerged from underground. As he traveled over the land he talked with Grandfather. He was lonely. When Grandfather saw that the Bear yet remained an animal he determined to allow the Bear to change his form. The Bear was greatly pleased at what Grandfather was going to grant him. Thereupon Grandfather allowed The Great Light Colored Bear to change into a man and he became the first Menominee, though he still kept his light skin.
The first Menominee traveled along the river but found himself alone and decided to call down to himself the Golden Eagle flying high in the sky and ask him to join with him. He called out, "Golden Eagle, come to me and be my brother. " Whereupon the Golden Eagle descended from the sky, changed into a man, and became Brother to the first Menominee.
Then the two Brothers walked together. While they continued traveling up the river, they pondered about who they would call upon to become their Brothers. While considering this question they saw a Beaver approaching. Being a woman, the Brothers called her Beaver Woman. The Beaver requested to be adopted as the Younger Brother of the Thunderers, but instead the Bear Clan adopted her as a Younger Brother.
As the three continued their journey up the river, they met and adopted the Sturgeon as a Younger Brother to whom they gave the obligation of history. In like manner they met and adopted the Elk as Younger Brother, to whom they gave the obligation of water carriers. Then they adopted the White Tail Deer and the Dog as Younger Brothers, and the Wolf, Crane, and Moose as Brothers. They adopted other birds, fish, and animals as Younger Brothers and each changed into a man. Each was given an obligation. Together they became the first Menominee, The People of the Wild Rice.
Comment
We have given a shortened form of the Menominee origin story. A full relation of the tradition oral account consumed many hours, even days. In addition, ours is in a paltry English version. In the Menominee language the inflection of each word, its cadence, pronunciation, and even order in the sentence, imparts much additional meaning, gives nuances of value, and adds majesty to the unfolding of events as instructive as it is inspiring.
In the origin story we discern several main qualities of Menominee traditional culture. The most important one is the identification of structures through which the culture would flow. It set up a system of Brothers and Younger Brothers with clear relationship of one Brother (family) to another family, as well as their manner of participation in the whole of the tribe. We refer to this as the clan system. The Brothers comprise the principal clans. In Menominee culture the clans functioned in a complex manner to convey numerous aspects of the world outlook to the people. Sometimes this assumed a highly formal role, but usually it was ordinary, in ways worked deeply into the body of the tribe through ceremonies and a variety of other devices.
In addition to defining structures for the movement of culture the origin story further contained assumptions about nature. To achieve right ends—that is, to gain a significant life—the Menominee believed they could not be separated from elements of nature but must incorporate them into their culture. Without them life to the Menominee would be incomprehensible. Thus, they wove into their culture the Bear and the Golden Eagle, the waters and the earth, the animals, fish, and birds, the plants and trees, the sky and the sun to assist them in defining problems and purpose. They became an integral part of their solutions to the challenge of human existence. Having brought the natural world into harmony with their lives they accorded it the deep respect it deserved.
Joining structure and nature as central components in the origin story is its definition of the Menominee homeland. It describes the Menominee’s ancestral lands and their place in them. They were and are a people with a clear identity, brought into existence along the sacred Menominee River that gathers in the upland waters of Lac Vieux Desert, and, in traditional days, flowed to the bay through thick beautiful forests and quiet glades, plunged down steep waterfalls, rested in deep pools, rich in flora and fauna, and sprinkled with a thousand islands—a stunningly attractive world. No equivocation has ever existed on this point.
Finally, we note, the creation process demonstrates their belief in a basic order that runs both through nature and their culture that they connect with and that sustains them as the substance of life. Their culture, neither pulls out of chaos nor spins out of arbitrariness but rather, grows out of the regularity present in the basic relationships of their life.
In the beckoning of the upraised arm of the Ancestral Bear and the approaching open talons of the rapidly descending Thunderer of Jim Frechette’s interpretation of the Menominee origin story, we view the cosmic moment when the tribe came into being. A sense suffuses us of a moving, civilizing force.
Reflection of James Frechette, Jr.
When I asked Jim about his Menominee Genesis carving, he remarked:
All cultures and peoples have a beginning or genesis.
Many have stories that describe this beginning. Some have lost
this valuable and crucial knowledge. If we abandon our beginnings
we become lost and have no identity. I know who I am.
The Clan System
The Five Principal Clans of the Menominee
Menominee developed the clan system as a means to address vital issues the tribe faced. The origin story describes the process whereby the clans came into being, their order and function within the society. It articulates the creation of five Brothers or principal clans as organs through which the culture flowed and tribal life attained meaning. Each Brother assumed specific responsibilities with the tribal whole; the culture manifested itself through their considered actions. As each assisted the culture, in turn, it sustained them.
The Bear Principal Clan
The Bear assumed the duties of civil administration throughout the tribe. The Eagle took as its lot war, fire carrying, and camp laborers. The Wolf pursued hunting, and the Crane construction obligations. The Moose accepted as his duty camp security, overseeing of the wild rice beds, supervising rice harvest and distribution of the grain. To some extent the Younger Brothers shared in these tasks, although most, in turn, had other specific obligations for their clan; the Sturgeon, for example, were historians in addition to being Younger Brother to the Bear.
The Bear Clan regulated civil affairs. The pipe carried in the crook of his left arm signifies this obligation to the society and the heavy responsibilities it entailed. The bowl of the original pipe was carved from wood or from stone, usually pipestone, and had a wooden stem. As part of his duties, the Bear called the tribe into general council meetings and in an orderly fashion directed the deliberations that followed. He also watched over the civil affairs of the tribe to be certain things flowed smoothly.
The Bear did not possess the power to compel by force or to move by edict his wishes or fancies, for the culture alone moved the individual Menominee to action. A directive or order if given would fall to the ground unheard. A strong and vigorous culture elicited respect and a desire on the part of the members to sustain it by following its principles. Peace and relative order marked the affairs of traditional society, a phenomenon consistently reported by the earliest European explorers and settlers. Of course, this meant that the cultural systems had to be constantly worked at and re-vitalized to enable them to become significant. But the culture provided for this element too.
The Golden Eagle Principal Clan
The Golden Eagle Clan took up war responsibilities and served as fire carriers. To the tribe, peace was ideal and war disrupted it. Consequently they sought, if at all possible, to avoid battle. And, when they fought, the war was in defensive terms. Thus, to meet the difficulties posed to them by this factor of force intrusive to the peace the Menominee focused much attention and cultural barriers upon this clan, a task requiring much thought and careful reasoning about its issues. We must not overlook the fact that all male Menominee adults served as warriors, not merely members of the Eagle Clan.
Eagle members had the duty of planning military strategy, performing ceremonies associated with war, and ensuring that the tribe followed the activities associated with war-making. As points of interest we note the Menominee did not have or use shields; their knives hung in sheaths by straps around the neck. As fire carriers they made certain fire would be available whether in travel, in camp, or in the village. They had a special way of ensuring this through the use of a fire bundle where slow burning or smoldering punk wrapped in a covering would remain for a long time, ready to expose the coals to air and fuel and burst into flames. Of course, this does not mean the several Younger Brother Clans of the Golden Eagle Clan lit everyone’s fire for them. Rather they saw to it that this important component of the ongoing life would be available. Perhaps, for example, in a camp they would start a fire so that all could obtain a light from it.
The Wolf Principal Clan
The Wolf Clan’s primary obligation within Menominee culture revolved around hunting, or more properly, the harvest of resources, for the taking of fish, fowl, and game went far beyond recreation. As one of two harvesting clans (Moose was the other). Its function was of central importance and encompassed a host of activities, ceremonies, cultural obligations and kindred functions. We ought not to forget that all male and many female Menominee hunted and fished.
The Crane Principal Clan
The Crane Clan served as the Menominee scientists. With it the culture met a major problem in tribal life. Members of the tribe did not achieve their ends in life by direct contact with one another and with products of their natural world, but rather approached them indirectly through a system of objects, intermediaries as it were. Baskets held nuts, canoes carried fishermen, birch bark made bags, stakes with interwoven laths of willow directed the movement of fish into traps. The culture held this feature of life to be of critical value and accordingly developed a tribal organ—the Crane Clan--to address it. Songs, dances, prayers, rituals, designs, colors, stories, legends, and many other features suffused the Crane duties to assist it in fulfilling tribal ends.
The Crane Clan had to master the knowledge of making things out of the materials presented to it by nature and to be certain the tribe maintained this arduously obtained information, along with the many manufacturing techniques that the work required. In effect, the material basis of Menominee society fell to the lot of the Crane.
The Moose Principal Clan
The fifth principal clan, the Moose, protected the wild rice beds during the growing season, supervised the harvest of the grain, and made certain the crop was equitably distributed among the members. In addition it provided camp security. The very name of the tribe, The People of the Wild Rice, suggests the key role wild rice played in the society. The nutritious grain that grew in shallow waters of rivers and lakes throughout the ancestral lands provided an excellent, storable, food source. Accordingly much attention was given to the control of the resource and the management of the harvest.
Political dimension of the clans
The political dimension of the clans illustrates more than any other characteristic their vital role in Menominee life. When the tribe confronted a problem or had to make a tribal decision, all clans addressed the issue. Each clan would gather all its members, discuss the question and come to a consensus on the answer they wished to give to it. Then the clan members would send a spokesperson or messenger from their number to convey their decision to a meeting of all the clans within the Phratry. Each is known as a Phratry meaning the Brother and his Younger Brothers--Bear, Wolf, Eagle, Moose, and Crane Phratries.
At the Phratry level all spokespersons voiced the decision their clans had reached. Thus for the Crane Brother Phratry the voices spoke for the Crane Clan or Principal Clan and the Great Blue Heron, Old Squaw Duck, Coot, Loon, and Turkey Buzzard Clans. By consensus the Phratry decided on the plan of action members would or should follow in resolving the issue before them. From their midst they then sent their spokesperson to represent them at the tribal council meeting. The spokesperson from the five Brothers merely represented the will of the clans.
At the council meeting the clans discussed the topic and then by consensus arrived at a decision on how to meet the question posed. If we trace the line of political authority we discover it flows from the membership through the clans to the council with severe limitations placed upon possible actions their spokesperson might take apart from the expressed will of the people. In effect the tribe functioned as a whole and the political form it chose furthered that principle.
Social dimensions of the clans
The clan system determined several social dimensions of Menominee life. One of these inviolate features was membership. Membership in a clan depended solely on birth; for one took membership in his or her father’s clan. One left a clan only by death. But in addition to membership clans regulated marriage. One’s mother was of one Phratry or Brother and his or her father was of another. One must marry from one of the unrelated remaining three Phratries, for all persons in the several Phratry clans of one’s parents were related by blood.
Not only did clans define where one belonged and where one’s life companion must come from but also they regulated aspects of art and education as well as other dimensions of tribal life. Belonging to specific clans certain colors and designs carried cultural and historical meaning steeped in legends and traditions. Moreover in the education system of the tribe each clan had special stories, or sacred legends that belonged only to that clan and no other. In rearing youth to fulfill their role in the larger whole of Menominee life these stories embraced principles and ideas that were vital to the tribe.
Reflection
The artist Jim Frechette reflected on the principal clans he had carved, painted, and assembled:
This group of five carvings comes from the Menominee origin story. This revelation defined the relationship of the people, culturally and politically. It provided the Menominee people the way to exist and function as an integral society. The function of the concepts in the story provides the strengths needed for survival of the people and their identity.
Devine Gifts
Golden Eagle Spirit
Within the world we inhabit and in which we work, we find numerous features that are of unusual and unsurpassed importance to us. They assist us in meeting our responsibilities, performing daily tasks, and are of great aid during ceremonials. When we look at the natural world, however, we discover that many of the elements within it are mundane and quite limited in usefulness, and really do not possess the qualities of these unusual objects that make our life so much better.
How can we explain the qualitative differences in these objects? The reason for the singular richness of the Menominee lies in powers beyond their control or ability to regulate which they derive from the special assistance of the Great Spirit. We have been blessed.
To have received such blessings, though, the Menominee must have lived lives of reverence for the world in which they existed, and to have sustained the culture which also derived from the Great Spirit.
Here we have depicted a Golden Eagle Spirit, a Thunderer, or messenger from the Cosmic Force, who comes bearing a gift of fire to the Menominee. The artist expressed his observations about the carving by saying:
The Menominee received many gifts from Great Grandfather. Things like medicines, knowledge of ways to do things, the many different foods, and fire came from Him.
The Organizational Life of the Tribe
Dance of the Water Carrier
Elk
The old time Menominee spent most of their time in ordinary work broken only occasionally by highly complex and unusual phenomenon. Consequently, their cultural forms developed a highly sensitized appreciation of the simple things in life.
Tasks differed. Many of the activities of the Menominee involved hard, back-breaking labor. These might include crafting a drum from a hollow log and buffalo skin, digging out a log to make a dugout canoe, hauling the fishing nets out of the water, paddling against the current of the river all day in order to reach one’s destination. Other tasks demanded mainly skill and patience, such as memorizing a story, fixing an arrowhead on a shaft, keeping crow watch over a corn field, and mixing herbs for a medicine potion.
No act stood in isolation, but fit within the whole of the culture where its meaning was defined. Even when talking late at night, the fire flies winking their tiny yellow-green lights in their countless thousands across the grasslands brought into play the great relational web of earth and person that ran through the heart of the Menominee and built respect for the wonders of nature. No Menominee was born with this insight and ability to find meaning in the simple, but obtained it as he grew to adulthood and learned the importance of these things in the life of the tribe. The tribe, moreover, did not leave this to chance.
The Menominee culture contained several attributes to enable a tribal member to express the meaning in the ordinary things of life. This could take the form of a dance celebrating the harvest of the generous gift of the sturgeon, it could be a ritual followed in the process of putting a newly crafted canoe in the water, or it could be a song sung in unison in witness to a natural phenomenon whose beautiful harmony captivated all who sang or heard it.
Of the Elk with his sweeping antlers and birch bark water containers, the artist said:
All people have sadness, seriousness, and happiness in their lives. Sometimes we sing and dance because we are sad. Sometimes we sing and dance because there are serious things in our lives. Then there are those times when we just sing and dance to celebrate our happiness.
Speaker of the People
Bear
When one examines the social structure of The People of the Wild Rice from the perspective of a totality, one soon obtains a sense of an organic entity. Within the society, primary duties were clearly set forth with each principal clan performing its obligations. Each clan who had assumed special duties also pursued them. As each major and minor unit moved toward its end, other units assisted them by the fact they pursued their own ends.
Thus, when one selects any point within the functioning whole of the tribe, whether it be an Eagle Clan warrior casting his vote in a clan meeting, or the Fisher Clan surveying the growing rice beds, or Old Squaw Duck Clan members building a weir, one can easily trace interrelations to all other parts. A sense of a community acting as one suffused the life of every participating member. A member knew that his act contributed to the ongoing life and he also knew that his act as well as all acts by other members were modified, defined, and organized by the acts of others.
In describing the Speaker of the People, the artist remarked:
The decision making process functioned a lot like a person’s body. It was made up of different parts. There were parts that performed specialized tasks. For example, the arms and hands, the legs and feet, the brain, and the mouth of a person. The mouth has no power of its own. It can only express thought or consensus of the decision making mechanism. It does not dictate to the body how it is to function, though some of us may act that way sometimes.
Celebration of the Future
In unceasing rhythm season follows season. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter come and go in accordance with the principles of change. All of nature participates in the movement of life forces. In the autumn, migratory birds fly south in their sky darkening millions and return in the spring; fish spawn in the spring; trees blossom and bear fruit and nuts. Even the stars rotate in heaven in perceived fixed patterns. Plants, birds, animals, and insects are born, grow old, die, and their spirits join the shadows of their ancestors. Each species replaces the old members with new ones. So likewise do humans obey the same life principles as the rest of creation, for they are no different. Generation replaces generation.
The Menominee understood this universal feature of existence and treated it with the respect it deserved. It is the nature of life and not to be lamented. Out of their understanding came a realization of the importance of assuring that the eternal sequence of generations continued in a proper manner. They devised cultural forms to enable them not only to accommodate the process, but also to celebrate their part in the great scheme of things.
Fox
Each generation confronted numerous challenges it had successfully to meet if the nation was to continue. These included clan obligations, religious relationships, camp work, acquiring stories from the elders, and much more. To acquire the vital necessary learning, the culture put sophisticated systems in place for the Menominee to utilize. Those rooted in their special perspective on the nature of humans and of the environment.
The Menominee considered themselves as part of the natural world where they had their being. The life around they shared with all creation; the Menominee had a common world. As the Menominee examined the natural world, they discovered in marvelous detail how it functioned.
In the reproduction of the species they observed how living things mater. The golden eagle, male and female, met and went through an extraordinary mating ritual high above with aerial displays and tumbling, a thrill to watch. The prairie chicken, the partridge, and the ruff grouse put on a spring mating dance and display that struck all who witnessed and heard it as significant beyond just the primeval urge. The drumming of the partridge, the booming of the chicken, and the thumping of the grouse imparted a sense that mating went beyond the merely physical. Who was not pleased to awaken at dawn to the song of the courting birds?
Biologically, the Menominee belonged to the same natural world as the life forms they witnessed. Ought they not to participate in the mating process at the level above the ordinary physical process? Their structures dictated the manner in which one related to another and devised a complicated cultural relationship for the youth to obtain a mate.
The artist remarked on this carving:
We are no different than our brother creatures. We respond in much the same manner. We establish protocols to build those values necessary to carry on life’s processes. There are significant events in one’s life and their importance is ceremonialized to maintain these values.
Preparing for the Hunt
White Tailed Deer
The Menominee did not cleave themselves from the natural world and stand as a people apart who could only relate to nature by imposing their will upon it. Instead they knew they were of the same life that pulsed through all living forms. They had discovered also that they stood in organic relationship with other forms of living matter. They saw this in the observed world. The ruffed grouse ate the buds of the popular, hawks preyed on the grouse. When hawks died their bodies decomposed and fed the poplar. An infinitely complicated web of life existed.
With absolute certainty the Menominee knew they were but a part of the life system where one component depended upon the other and ultimately the whole depended upon them all. When a natural disaster swept their world, whether a forest fire or drought or the failure of the migratory pattern of a key species to return them to a particular area, life became distorted and often harsh. If foxes throve one season, rabbits and prairie chickens perished by the multitude and hawks as well as Menominee went hungry. Balance, they observed, is the prerequisite for a healthy order of life—not just their life, but the whole of which they were a portion.
Menominee culture went to great length to ensure that this distinctive and vital aspect of life would be recognized and that future generations would sustain the principle. They developed codes or conduct and ceremonials to keep the concept meaningful for them.
To provide meat for self and family one must kill game. The raccoon, the wolf, the raven, and the otter do the same thing; the coot, the loon, and the crane fish. To the Menominee, the game animals were brothers, fellow creatures in the common natural world whose importance they fully realized. Thus he would take only sufficient meat to fill his needs. In return, when his time to die came, his body would return to the earth and provide grass so that the deer’s children could eat. Through ceremony the Menominee affirmed the great harmony of the forces. Menominee did not live off the land like a parasite but as its brother.
Jim Frechette reflected upon Preparing for the Hunt:
In the process of arriving at a concept for this carving, much thought went into the hunt, indeed the whole idea of harvesting, whether it be animal or plant foods: In the process of arriving at a concept for this carving, much thought went into the hunt, indeed the whole idea of harvesting, whether it is animal or plant foods. The relationship between the Menominee and their environment seemed to dominate the final work. The stories and teachings concerning respect for our brother creatures, the consequences of wasting the resources, and our obligations toward all things that made life possible. Just imagine a concept of conservation and preservation ceremonialized long before the arrival of the Europeans.
The Successful Hunter
Wolf
The proper conduct of life was a major concern for the traditional Menominee. To this end they gave much thought, developed stories, history, cultural forms, and other structures to regulate relations. Regulation of conduct, however, was not restricted to human interaction, but included as an integral facet the relationships with the natural world, an organic part of the Menominee reality. Under these codes of conduct they defined the right way to treat people, an aunt, a sister, or a nephew. These firm, clear, and compelling rules for action were simply the way it was done. A stranger must be housed, fed, and protected; a son must be taught to speak gently and harbor no deep grievances if he were to become a man of the Menominee.
These codes came out of their life experiences. Biologically, humans are just the same as the rest of the creatures of the natural world.
The living force inside plants does not differ one whit from that through the human body. When one observes the fox with her kits she instructs them on how to hunt, where to hide, and where to rest in the evening. A bear sow does so with her cub, the doe with her fawn. The moose feed and move in accordance with principles of conduct. In fact, within the natural world all creatures seem to follow standards of conduct and to have defined the way they relate one to another.
To pursue hunting in a proper way was part of the Menominee concern for right relationships. For was not the bear, goose, brant, deer, fish, and rabbit brother to the Menominee? Around the hunting process the tribe wove many cultural features and ceremonials to keep the conduct alive and vital to them. In the act of proper taking of game the celebration gave this fundamental relationship new meaning and defined the hunter’s right role in the universe to provide sustenance so that life's children could be sustained.
Jim Frechette said of this carving:
Hunting was more than an activity to stock the larder. This aspect of the culture was a true relationship. The game filled was our brother creatures. As a consequence this process had to have dignity, respect and ceremony. We live in this world with our brothers. They do not live in our world.
Respect for Things Significant
Every society seeks to establish standards or ideals by which it can evaluate life in its many aspects. The Menominee created their basis for judgment in terms of their world and activities, and any references they used to interpret society had to relate to the practical. Without this, they would have no meaning.
Meaning for the Menominee was derived from their history, culture, and practical activities. As a distinct nation with a unique history, culture, and experiences relating to their environment, their idea of what was right and wrong in life and how to define it was their own.
A distinctive Menominee cultural phenomenon was the oneness of all things, the concept of the whole we have emphasized so often. Oneness, though, had many dimensions, from the past to the future and throughout the present. Thus came the standards for the future. The method one utilized to know where a particular deed was good or faulty rested in large measure upon the past and experiences made universal by culture. We see this singular fact so often in the past with ancient stories handed down from generation to generation.
The stories of their culture were handed down “exactly as they had been handed down” to them, replete with the gestures, the word inflections, the acting, and the sense of timing. A timeless quality suffuses the mind of a careful listener and a candid appraiser.
An evaluative base for the tribe appeared then within the cultural whole. Through knowledge of their culture, tribal elements clearly knew and understood the criteria for ethical judgments. But for the Menominee, the culturally defined base was only one of two standards of value within their society. The other lay in the realm of art.
The Menominee regarded the quality of beauty in all things as a standard for value judgments. The categories for aesthetic principles had affirmed relationship with the culture but had the added component of the artist’s unique contribution. Artistry emerged in association with the practical work of the society. In burning and scraping a dugout canoe from a butternut log, or in stitching together a birch bark basket with jack pine roots, or in any similar activity artistic principles came to the forefront.
The artist’s standard came to be the object in its fullest meaning. This ideal meaning elicited from the individual worker his best effort to achieve a beautiful object and in so doing provided tribal members a second method for establishing values.
The Fisherman
Loon
Proper perception of the natural world is culturally defined. Only when one has developed a long and close relationship with the intricate forms of nature do the striking differences between apparently similar things appear. Mere flocks of birds become geese or ducks, ducks become canvasbacks or mallards. The Menominee premise of the oneness of man and nature sharpened their ability to discern the marvelous shades of differences within the natural order, and with that devise value judgments. A wolf’s paw print in the mud became an elderly wolf’s weakened impression. A green color in a leaf became a species defining description.
Perhaps the best illustration can be found in the area of the Menominee world we know as water birds. These include cranes, swans, geese, ducks, waders, and others. To the Menominee the loon stood forth as the most superb of water fowl. Its white and dark brown coloring, diving skills, swimming strength, flight peculiarities, mastership of its territory, and strange and beautiful call impart to this creature unusual qualities. It ranked above all others.
Indeed, throughout their culture the significance of this bird was noted. The Menominee spun tales around it, had songs, traditions, and other elements that brought forth that unusual bird’s qualities. For example, among contemporary Menominee you might see the four legs of a social drum carved and painted to resemble the arching neck of the loon, raising the drum from the earth so that the sound could echo throughout the clearing.
The artist remarked on this carving:
The loon is given great respect by the Menominee. You cannot study this bird without getting a fleeting glimpse into the power it has. Between the symbolism and natural strengths he possesses one begins to get the feeling of the importance of this bird.
Judging the Maple Sugar
Beaver
For a worker to judge the quality of his activity he needs a basis upon which he can rest his judgment. In the Menominee world the basis was the cultural system. Sugaring illustrates this characteristic.
Maple sugar was a major food of the Menominee. Once made it could last for a year, providing them essential nutrients and a tasty meal. To make sugar, the families moved to the sugar bush in early spring, made birch bark containers to hold the sap, and built fires to boil down the watery fluid to the think consistency required. To know how long to boil and when to pour took practice and the commentary of one’s fellows on the finished product in order to obtain the right quality.
Additionally, sugar was a great gift of the creator to the tribe. The food was absolute vital to them and had to be processed and prepared for storage of the tribe would go hungry that spring and early summer. As one perspired over the hot fires, the larger picture loomed before him and he knew his activity was right: right with his fellow sugarers, right with the tribe, right with the culture, and right with the maple tree.
Jim Frechette remarked of this carving:
As in all cultures, the Menominee established and held to criterion, standards, tests, and ethics. One must always be cognizant of where they are and how they relate to things around them.
Clan Obligations
Preparing for War
Winter Hawk
The figure Preparing for War depicts Winter Hawk, a Younger Brother of the Golden Eagle Principal Clan, making ready to go into battle. Open to view at his feet are the contents of a war bundle. In his hand near his ear, is a war drum he is playing while singing. We should not suppose Winter Hawk’s song beseeches Grandfather to come to the aid of the Menominee in the forthcoming struggle for that would embrace too narrow a view and would be a concept rooted in the stereotypes of Western Civilization rather than Menominee culture. The Menominee treated war as a serious business, and we must approach it in their terms in order to understand it.
Through ceremonies the Menominee placed war in its proper position in their society. Their response to a call for war was carefully thought out and cautiously approached. They did not respond emotionally to the question of going to war but instead thought through the issue involved with much deliberation and great care as to the implications of such a weighty act. This is where the ceremonial functions played such an important role. Ceremonies permitted them the time to cool passions, provided a format to permit issues to be raised, and defined the principles to follow when they discussed war and its potential consequences for the tribe. Only as a last, bitter, act would they utilize force.
Ceremonies guaranteed a proper perspective for war. This did not in any way diminish their military prowess. When a decision for war came, the Menominee were fierce warriors, renowned in the councils of the colonial European nations as well as among Indian nations for their fidelity to principle and their bravery in battle.
We should also observe that modern Menominee society still observes this significant principle. The Menominee have participated in the Civil War, Spanish American War, World Wars I and II, the Korean conflict, the Vietnam War, Desert Storm, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and in several minor wars. Their extensive contributions are remembered on the granite memorials to their veterans in Keshena.
Jim Frechette commented on this carving:
The resolution of conflict varies considerably among the different peoples of the world. Some cultures glorified death by war; some kept the beast in its proper place. The Menominee have always been a peaceful people. However, when necessary they field warriors equal to any. The Menominee always kept war and its consequences in proper perspective to the other more important aspects of the culture.
The Harvester
Moose
During the origin period of the tribe along the banks of the sacred river when the Moose Brother joined the Menominee Brotherhood it assigned him the duties of camp security, protecting of the wild rice beds, overseeing the crop harvest, and supervising the distribution of the finished product. The nutritious wild rice was a major food source of the tribe. It also had the ability to withstand months of storage. In the depths of winter, when storms and cold made the use of other foods difficult to obtain, rice sustained the people.
The Moose had to devise ways to meet its responsibilities, no easy matter considering the difficulty of the work involved in wild rice management and its importance as a tribal food source. To accomplish its mission the clan turned to the cultural aspects of tribal life.
As part of the creation, wild rice possessed a living force, a "spirit," not unlike the force within the Menominee. Accordingly, to approach the task of harvesting, the Moose had to begin with that knowledge of equality of man and rice in the world order. Thus there emerged ceremonies—songs, rituals, dances, traditions, stories, and so forth, to let the rice know that the harvest had to occur so that the Menominee could continue to exist as the creator intended, and to acknowledge to the living forces the generous bounty they had donated to the tribe. The Menominee truly appreciated the gift and ultimately repaid rice.
But in addition to revitalizing the relationship between the rice and the tribe the ceremonials had another purpose that we could easily overlook by concentrating on the details of song and ritual. The higher purpose was to organize the tribe’s activities around the harvest: the ricing activity could be defined in dance, the myriad questions of grain ripeness could be addressed, and the necessary procedures to follow so that this vital grain would be properly harvested could be reaffirmed.
The artist expressed his idea behind the carving:
The fall season brought with it much activity in harvesting, the maturing of berries, nuts, vegetables, and of course wild rice. That whole practice of harvesting and processing was formalized to the extent that the collection and preparation were carried out ceremonially. That is, it included the relationship of the people with the surrounding world and respect for its preservation.
The Dancer, Hulling the Rice
Raccoon
During the period of the great cosmic transformation, the Brothers adopted into the Moose Principal Clan four Younger Brothers: Raccoon, Elk, Marten, and Fisher. In addition to specific other duties some might have, they were to join with the Moose in his several obligations in the wild rice beds. Harvesting was an especially busy time. Before we can fully understand this assignment we must know some characteristics of the rice.
The wild rice is a thickly growing aquatic grass that thrives in clear, still, shallow water with its stems protruding sometimes five to twelve feet with the rice kernels affixed to the end of the stems. In a dug out canoe the Menominee pushed among the stalks to knock the kernels into the boat bottom. Since a hull tightly covers the wild rice kernel it must first be parched to dry and loosen it, and then processed and the covering removed. The Menominee removed the hull by dancing the rice which loosened the covering. Then they winnowed the grain separating it from the chaff by the action of the blowing wind.
In the figure the Raccoon dances on the sack of rice, supporting himself with a pole as he sings his song of harvest providing rhythm for the dance as he gives thanks to the Great Sprit for His gift. The pressure exerted by the shuffling movement of his feet on the sack loosens the hulls. In the open bag to his right, unhulled rice waits to be hulled. On the ground rests a birch bark winnowing tray. After the dancer has finished he will pour the farrago of light hulls and heavy kernels into the tray and toss them into the air so that the wind will blow away the light hulls leaving the kernels to drop back into the tray. The birch box on his left with its removable cap contains winnowed rice ready for washing and drying before use or storage.
The Raccoon wears one of three traditional Menominee headgear (roach, fur cap, and turban). The Menominee wove fibers of tree bark and plants—such as basswood bark or nettle—colored with natural dyes, into a sash often worn around the waist and tied with its ends dangling. Sometimes, as here it would be done up as a turban.
What we are seeing here in the hulling ceremony, however, is not mere, stark work in a mechanical sense, but rather, work with a cultural meaning. The action of hulling incorporated the prayers and acknowledgement to the creator that the whole of life was now in dynamic form with the Menominee receiving a great gift from the wild rice. In return the members had so harvested that the seeds for next year had been planted. They also had protected the rice beds from depredation during the year and would so in the next year. Thus, the Menominee aided the rice while the rice nourished the Menominee—a signal instance of the interrelationships that constituted this good earth.
The artist commented on this piece:
One’s awareness that they are part of a whole can be seen in everyday activity, from the greeting of a new day to performing tasks to insure survival. That relationship with the whole always meant that taking was always balanced by giving. This consciousness kept the harmony with all things strong and alive.
The Water Carrier-Washing the Rice
Elk
The Elk was the Younger Brother of the Moose Principal Clan where part of his obligations included the several activities associated with the rice harvest. When we examine the many phases in the protection, reaping, processing, distribution, and storage of this magnificent grain of the North Country we are struck by the time and energy that had to go into the fulfillment of his responsibilities. Seen merely as back-breaking, dirty work, the toil from sun-up to sun-down seems divorced from Menominee cultural forms and belong rather to the disagreeable portion of life. Yet, if we so assume we would be terribly mistaken, for the harvest firmly fits into the Menominee cultural whole.
Menominee culture fuses with the natural world. No distinct boundaries can be discerned, regardless of the direction one approaches it. Wild rice labor echoes nature. In the natural world, when we observe the great blue heron or the crane we find they are always busy—flying, wading, searching for fish and water food, building a nest, rearing young, and watching for predators. The same observation is true of the black bear who is constantly feeding, moving through the brush and forest, turning over logs, digging for mice, searching for berry patches, and patiently fishing In the kingdom of nature all creation is animated.
The Menominee are just one of the wonderful created beings on this planet, certainly not as magnificent as a wood violet, nor as strong as the panther, nor as long-lived as the sturgeon, but nevertheless possessed of their own significant special traits. When the creator incorporated hard effort within the natural scheme of things he likewise blessed the Menominee with this necessary element. Work is a positive quality and has a place in life.
Alongside work in nature one also witnesses a pride in accomplishments. If one watches the eagle finish its nest in the top of the highest pine tree and then for a few minutes perch motionless nearby, an understanding of the great bird’s satisfaction with what he or she has done flows into you. Similarly to observe a bobcat patiently stalk a feeding ruffed grouse impresses you with the sense he must possess of himself able to hunt so well.
With the Menominee a respect for what one does is part of the creator’s plan of nature. Only through hard work will that arrive in one’s life.
As Jim Frechette has said of this piece:
There was a natural rhythm in the community life processes. Great Grandfather saw to it that the Menominee had work to do. He did not want them to be without pride and accomplishment. He wanted the people to place value on things in proper perspective
Menominee Clan Structure
Bear Brother (Speakers)
Bear Clan (Principal Clan)Beaver Clan
Muskrat Clan
Otter Clan
Sturgeon Clan
Mud Turtle Clan
Sun Fish Clan
Porcupine Clan
Eagle Brother (Warriors)
Golden Eagle (Principal Clan)Crow Clan
Raven Clan
Red Tail Hawk Clan
Bald Eagle Clan
Fish Hawk Clan (Osprey)
Sparrow Hawk Clan (Am. Kestrel)
Winter Hawk Clan (Marsh Hawk)
Fork Tail Hawk (Swallow-Tail Kite)
Swift Flying Hawk (Coopers Hawk)
Wolf Brother (Hunters)
Wolf Clan (Principal Clan)Dog Clan
White Tail Deer Clan
Fox Clan
Pine Squirrel Clan
Crane Clan (Builders)
Crane Clan (Principal Clan)Great Blue Heron
Old Squaw Duck Clan
Coot Clan
Loon Clan
Turkey Buzzard Clan
Moose Brother (Security)
Moose Clan (Principal Clan)Elk Clan
Marten Clan
Fisher Clan
Raccoon Clan