developmental trail at the time of contact. These are the descendents of the people who turned to us for survival’s sake when the North American winter descended. Science and innovation apparently have slippery definitions.
But the science of the earth is a different creature from the science of numbers and theorems. It’s a discipline of coexistence. It’s the knowledge and acceptance of the mystery that surrounds us—and the awareness that allowing it to remain a mystery, celebrating it rather than trying to unravel it, engenders humility and a keen sense of the spiritual.
My mother is the best bannock baker going. When her bread comes out of the oven every Indian in the bush comes running. Her bannock rises elegantly. It is spongy and soft and tastes golden, like the colour of the crust. With jam or a thick smear of lard, washed down with strong black tea, there’s nothing like it in the world.
She gave me some on my first visit home. To me it tasted of reconnection, warm and welcoming and oddly familiar. It still does, actually. I wanted to learn to bake it just like she did. She laughed when I told her. To my mother’s way of thinking, the thinking of a bush-raised woman, men didn’t bake. But I was insistent, and she undertook to teach me.
I’d been raised with the Western science that calls for precise measurements and a decisive experimental process. I clung to the security of numbers. But what my mother taught me that day had nothing to do with grams or ounces, teaspoons or cups. Instead, she told me to take a couple handfuls of flour, a splat of lard, a splotch of baking powder and a nip of salt. Then to swash it with milk or water, pat it about until it felt warm and soft, and bake it until it looked good. Once it was out of the oven you gave it an earnest slap to settle it and left it on the counter to cool. The splotch, splat, nip and slap process was odd— but it worked.
That first bannock was glorious. I watched it rise like a little kid would, with my face pressed to the glass. When it cooled enough to cut I sheared off enough for the two of us. It was the first Indian thing I’d ever done. It was the first time in my life I could remember receiving Indian teaching, and it was the first time I had physically expressed myself as an Indian person. It was unforgettable.
When I tasted it I smiled. My mother was a good teacher, and the texture of that first Indian bread was sublime. With marmalade and butter melted into it, my bannock was a rip-roaring success. We shared it with my stepfather and uncles, who were waiting patiently in the living room. Watching the men of my lost family enjoy a tribal thing that I had created was as poignant a moment as I’ve ever had.
I still bake my bannock the same way. Friends marvel at my non-methodical manner at the stove. I laugh and tell them it’s native science, and it is.
When I bake bannock I feel Ojibway. The process evokes images of bush life, an open fire, a lump of dough on a stick and a circle of people gathered in community to share fresh bread. Knowing that I hold an Ojibway skill, a part of our science, instills pride in me. And when the plate is passed around to the usual lip-smacking, finger-licking compliments from non-native friends, I smile to think that our Indian science is being shared.
Sure, it’s an easy thing, something a child could do, but passing it forward is what matters. Our cultural survival depends on it. There will always be someone seeking to recognize themselves in the sure small ways we do things. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out.
The Birth and Death of Super Injun
. . .
I GOT MY first writing job in 1979, as a reporter for a now defunct newsmagazine called New Breed based in Regina, Saskatchewan.
I lied to get that job. I was almost twenty-four by then, and directionless. When I saw the job advertised on the board at the Native Employment Centre, I wanted it right away. I loved words and
But the science of the earth is a different creature from the science of numbers and theorems. It’s a discipline of coexistence. It’s the knowledge and acceptance of the mystery that surrounds us—and the awareness that allowing it to remain a mystery, celebrating it rather than trying to unravel it, engenders humility and a keen sense of the spiritual.
My mother is the best bannock baker going. When her bread comes out of the oven every Indian in the bush comes running. Her bannock rises elegantly. It is spongy and soft and tastes golden, like the colour of the crust. With jam or a thick smear of lard, washed down with strong black tea, there’s nothing like it in the world.
She gave me some on my first visit home. To me it tasted of reconnection, warm and welcoming and oddly familiar. It still does, actually. I wanted to learn to bake it just like she did. She laughed when I told her. To my mother’s way of thinking, the thinking of a bush-raised woman, men didn’t bake. But I was insistent, and she undertook to teach me.
I’d been raised with the Western science that calls for precise measurements and a decisive experimental process. I clung to the security of numbers. But what my mother taught me that day had nothing to do with grams or ounces, teaspoons or cups. Instead, she told me to take a couple handfuls of flour, a splat of lard, a splotch of baking powder and a nip of salt. Then to swash it with milk or water, pat it about until it felt warm and soft, and bake it until it looked good. Once it was out of the oven you gave it an earnest slap to settle it and left it on the counter to cool. The splotch, splat, nip and slap process was odd— but it worked.
That first bannock was glorious. I watched it rise like a little kid would, with my face pressed to the glass. When it cooled enough to cut I sheared off enough for the two of us. It was the first Indian thing I’d ever done. It was the first time in my life I could remember receiving Indian teaching, and it was the first time I had physically expressed myself as an Indian person. It was unforgettable.
When I tasted it I smiled. My mother was a good teacher, and the texture of that first Indian bread was sublime. With marmalade and butter melted into it, my bannock was a rip-roaring success. We shared it with my stepfather and uncles, who were waiting patiently in the living room. Watching the men of my lost family enjoy a tribal thing that I had created was as poignant a moment as I’ve ever had.
I still bake my bannock the same way. Friends marvel at my non-methodical manner at the stove. I laugh and tell them it’s native science, and it is.
When I bake bannock I feel Ojibway. The process evokes images of bush life, an open fire, a lump of dough on a stick and a circle of people gathered in community to share fresh bread. Knowing that I hold an Ojibway skill, a part of our science, instills pride in me. And when the plate is passed around to the usual lip-smacking, finger-licking compliments from non-native friends, I smile to think that our Indian science is being shared.
Sure, it’s an easy thing, something a child could do, but passing it forward is what matters. Our cultural survival depends on it. There will always be someone seeking to recognize themselves in the sure small ways we do things. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out.
The Birth and Death of Super Injun
. . .
I GOT MY first writing job in 1979, as a reporter for a now defunct newsmagazine called New Breed based in Regina, Saskatchewan.
I lied to get that job. I was almost twenty-four by then, and directionless. When I saw the job advertised on the board at the Native Employment Centre, I wanted it right away. I loved words and
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