Walking through Mishibizhiw: Challenging the Measured Pace of Colonization
- Tasha Beeds
This co-created mural is based on Josephine-Ba Mandamin’s journey to bring awareness of water pollution and environmental degradation in the Great Lakes region. Facilitated by artists Christi Belcourt and Isaac Murdoch, the work was developed over the span of five days in March 2020 in collaboration with UTSC students, staff, and faculty.
For Indigenous people, stories are living, maintaining who we are despite the attempts to eradicate us. They are maskihky,1bundled up for us by our Old Ones who knew stories would be the antidote to colonialism.
He moved slowly and painfully, so weak he could barely swim. The refuse from humans swirled around him, getting caught on his scales. Plastic bags, bottles, and cups with various lettering—McDonalds, Tim Hortons, Walmart, and Nestle—along with fishing lines, straws, toys, and more. Twenty-two million pounds annually2flowed from humans into Gichigamiin,3his home. He remembered a time when only Anishinaabeg4lived on the land. They honoured Nibi and the Mnidoowag5with offerings and Semaa, recognizing how humans were a part of Creation—not above it.
Soon after they arrived, the Newcomers learned about the Copper Nohkomisag6whom his kind had fiercely protected since time immemorial. Anishinaabeg always knew to never take too much. They were reciprocal, gifting in return, respecting the delicate balance Gizhe Mnidoo had given. He and his warriors couldn’t stop the machines that kept appearing, digging deeper into the lakebed, leaving a slew of waste that now mingled with the plastic. The Copper Nohkomisag the Anishinaabeg used to carry Nibi because they helped the cleansing process wasn’t enough for the Settlers. They mined iron, nickel, gold, and platinum, leaving mercury and asbestos behind.7His kind kept dying until even their nemesis Nimkii Binesiwak8took pity on them. From the whispered prayers he heard, Anishinaabeg also faced the same unparalleled death and suffering as his Water Nation were experiencing. He wondered if the Settlers had made a pact with the Windigos;9their hearts appeared frozen, too.
The Settlers deliberately ruptured the memory of many Anishinaabeg while saying the Mnidoowag were figments of a “savage” imagination. It wasn’t so bad when they first arrived, but as time passed, the canoes gave way to machines that leaked poison and pumped even more strange substances into Nibi. Death paved settlement. Anishinaabeg visited less and less; some of the Old Ones passed on the knowledge of the Mnidoowag, but their offerings dwindled, resulting in a weakening they’d never experienced before.
He remembered when, not too long ago, Anishinaabe niniijaanisag10suddenly disappeared. The playing, canoeing, swimming, and fishing stopped. All along the shorelines of Gichigamiin, men and women in black coats with the signatory marking ✛ hanging from their necks brought little brown bodies in rock-filled burlap bags. His tears mingled with Nibi as they tried to sing the babies home. The Little Ones whispered: “They locked up our Spirits. We can’t move through the Western door. We can’t go home. They are afraid we will come back and haunt them for what they did to us, so they trapped us using their ✛ power.”
Nibi held the children for as long as she could, but she wasn’t strong enough to break the lock. She was exhausted. She had to focus all her energy on staying alive. He often helped her, using his tail to get the larger pieces of plastic out of her; however, they eventually broke down, forming new, minuscule weapons. Neither he nor Nibi could navigate the unseeable, and they had no choice but to ingest them. Between using her currents to try to catch the plastic, moving the turtles, fish, beavers, and others with waves, and dealing with the onslaught of violence from the humans, Nibi was slowly losing the fight for Life. In some places, she’d already dried up, no longer flowing, and his kind, as the Gchi’Mnidoowag of the Water, felt what she did. Nibi and her world were dying. What he didn’t understand was how the humans couldn’t see that what was happening to the Water, and to the Beings that were a part of her, was going to happen to them, too.
He used the last of his strength to create the whirlpool familiar to the Anishinaabeg. It was his doorway into their world.11He had watched a nêhiyaw woman for some time, seeing her before she saw herself. She was already connected to Nibi; she just didn’t know it, yet. He pulled himself through the opening, collapsing when he hit the shoreline. He called on Sabe and the memekwisisak12for help. They would take him to the woman who Nibi said would be able to see and hear him.
I first saw Mishibizhiw in dreamtime. He was a strange-looking large cat who echoed a stegosaurus. He was so severely dehydrated that parts of him were like dried leather. Everything around him was dry and desert-like. I didn’t know who he was, but I felt deep empathy for him. He lay on his side in pain, panting and barely breathing. I could hear him whispering for help. Moved to tears, I didn’t know what I could do. His presence stayed with me into the waking hours.
As one of the “five great beings who might be referred to as ‘super-manitos,’”13Mishibizhiw is connected to the Midewiwin Society. The world of the Mnidoowag as understood by the Mide is “accessible only through the doorway of the dreams . . . To enter this world was to step into, not out of, the real world.”14The lines between the two blurred when I saw Mishibizhiw at the edge of a forest on an early morning walk with my late dog, Thunder. The Water Panther was right in front of me—whether illusion or real, I couldn’t tell. I knew I had to act, though, and so I did, using Anishinaabe and nêhiyaw Protocols.
In response to the gifts I gave him, Mishibizhiw visited me again through dream. This time he spoke weakly, but clearly, piercing through the worlds. He implored me in his fragile state with measured words: “Tell the people not to forget, remind them of their relationship with us and with Nibi.” Just as we humans were once vulnerable before the Mnidoowag, Mishibizhiw was now the one helpless in front of me.15
The very next day, Anishinaabe-Kwewag Liz Osawamick and Shirley Williams knocked on my door, encouraging me to join them on their Water Walk for Rice Lake. They explained how, by walking in Ceremony for the Water, they were walking for all of Life. While walking, the Water Walkers sing, express gratitude to Nibi, make offerings, and educate people. Women, the only doorway through which human life can enter, carry Nibi in a Copper Nohkom vessel, remembering and honouring the connections between the two entities and between the women and Creation. The men and gender-fluid people, as protectors, carry the Eagle Water Staff. The Water Walks were started by the late Grandmother Biidasige-ba, Josephine-ba16Mandamin, who walked all around the Great Lakes in response to Three Fires Mide Ogimaa Bawdwaywidun-ba, Eddie-ba Benton-Banai, who spoke of a prophecy wherein Water would be worth more than her weight in gold. Just as Josephine-ba had responded to the call to action, I knew Water Walking was how I could help Mishibizhiw and Nibi.
Walking for the Water is not just a physical act; it’s a spiritual obligation under Indigenous legal orders. The offerings I gave bound me to Mishibizhiw and to Nibi. The ties are fashioned from a deep, profound love for Creation. As a kôhkom and an Aunty, I carry a responsibility to the Ones who follow behind me: my grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and your children, too. I am going to be an Ancestress. I want our future generations to know I did everything I could in my power to help them live. I want them to know I challenged the pace of colonization through my own movement across Shkagamik Kwe.17
Every step taken is a prayer for Nibi, for all of Life, and for our future generations.
See Connections ⤴