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The Bay Monster and the Shadow
Folklore, myths, and legends begin as traditional narratives, but over time, as they are told and retold, stories tend to become archetypes — symbols for the truths of our existence, the external and internal, our landscapes and ourselves.
To believe in these stories was to experience the symbolic power of the supernatural, which, contrary to much modern thought, was rife with knowledge and valuable lessons. These stories are still here with us. All you have to do is feel their truth ... and see.
A ready connection our sacred landscape and the knowledge and power of life around us is through the stories of First Nations, particularly the stories passed down locally from our own early Natives.
“They [the Ojibwa Indians of Parry Island] lived much nearer to nature than most white men, and they looked with a different eye on the trees and the rocks, the water and the sky,” wrote Diamond Jenness of the National Museum of Canada in 1929. “They were less materialistic, more spiritually minded, than Europeans, for they did not picture any great chasm separating mankind from the rest of creation, but interpreted everything around them in much the same terms as they interpreted their own selves.”
While researching for his report, titled The Ojibwa Indians of Parry Island, Their Social and Religious Life, Jenness learned that —according to the Ojibwa — man consisted of three parts, a corporeal body (wiyo) that decays and disappeared after death, a soul (udjitchog) that travels after death to the land of souls in the west, ruled by Nanibush, and a shadow (udjibbom) that roams about on earth but generally remains near the grave.
In Jenness’s words, “The soul is located in the heart and is capable of travelling outside the body for brief periods, although if it remains separate too long the body will die ... The soul is the intelligent part of man’s being. The soul is also the seat of the will.”
The shadow is slightly more indefinite than the soul. It is located in the brain, but like the soul, the shadow often operates apart from the body. Jenness elaborates:
In life, it [the shadow] is the ‘eyes’ of the soul, as it were, awakening the latter to perception and knowledge ... When a man is travelling, his shadow goes before or behind him. Normally it is in front, nearer to his destination. There are times when a man feels that someone is watching him, or is near him, although he can see no one, it is his shadow that is warning him, trying to awaken his soul to perceive the danger.
The shadow is invisible, but sometimes it allows itself to be seen with the same appearance as the body. This is why you often think you see someone who is actually miles away.
In 1929, Wasauksing (Parry Island) resident Francis Pegahmagabow shared this story about the shadow: “My two boys met me at the wharf yesterday evening and accompanied me to my house. Sometime before our arrival, my sister-in-law looked out of the window and saw the elder boy pass by. It was really his shadow that she saw, not the boy himself, for we must have been nearly a mile away at the time.”
Many Ojibwa living on Parry Island in the 1920s still believed that all objects had life, and life was synonymous with power. Just as man’s power comes from his intelligence, his soul, so does the power of the animal, the tree, and the stone.
Mr. Pegahmagabow explained, “Long ago the manidos or supernatural powers gathered somewhere and summoned a few Indians through dreams, giving them power to fly through the air to the meeting place ... The Indians [their souls] travelled thither, and the manidos taught them about the supernatural world and the powers they had received from the Great Spirit. Then, they sent the Indians home again.”
The Parry Island Ojibwa found authority for their belief in a world of supernatural beings around them, beings who are part of the natural order of the universe no less than man himself, whom they resemble in the possession of intelligence and emotions. Like man, they too are male or female and in some cases have families of their own. Some are friendly to the Native peoples, others are hostile. According to the museum report of 1929, there are manidos everywhere, or there were until the white man came, for today, the Indians say, most of them have moved away.
According to Jenness, “Occasionally, the Parry Islanders speak of a Maji Manido. Bad Spirit, referring either to some lesser being malevolent to man, most commonly the great serpent or water spirit. Apparently, the chief enemies to man are the water-serpents, which can travel underground and steal away a man’s soul. If lightning strikes a tree near a native person’s wigwam it is the thunder-manido driving away some water-spirit that is stealing through the ground to attack the man or his family. The leader of all water-serpents is Nzagima.”
One needed to be very careful to protect the soul, Jenness points out. “Until quite recently, and perhaps even now in certain families, adolescent boys and girls were compelled to fast for a period in order to obtain a vision and blessing from some manido,” he noted. “Parents gave their children special warning against a visitation from the great serpent, which might appear to them in the form of a man and offer its aid and blessing. A boy or girl who dreamed they received a visit from a snake should reject its blessing and inform their father, who would bid their return and seek a second visitation, since the evil serpent never repeats its overtures once they have been rejected. If then, a snake appears in another dream the boy or girl may safely accept its blessing. But if he incautiously accepts a blessing from the evil serpent he will deeply rue it afterwards, for sooner or later he and his family will have to feed it with their souls and die.”
John Manatuwaba, a 70-year-old Ojibwa in 1929, recalled a family who fed their souls to the serpent: “A Parry Island couple had three children, two boys who died very young and a child that died at birth. Two years ago the serpent swallowed the man’s soul. The woman then confessed that in her girlhood she had accepted a blessing from the evil serpent.”
“I recall the tales about the water-serpent,” stated a First Nations resident of Parry Island today. “It was told to us to keep the kids from going out in deep water. This kept the children safe.
“I have heard that the water-serpent lives in Three Mile Lake and travels underground to Hay Bay. It was told to us that when a south wind blows and the water becomes murky the serpent is moving in the water.”
According to another First Nations resident, a group of young children encountered the water spirit in the 1950s on Parry Island. The creature was snake-like and had legs. It could travel through the forest as well as the water.
One Native elder on the island, when asked about the water spirit, reinforced the belief that the creature is actually a spirit.
There are other spirits that inhabit the district, such as the little people called the Memegwesi. They are friendly manidos, or rather a band or family of manidos. They may play pranks on the people, but never harm them. In the early part of the last century, a Parry Island native on his way to Depot Harbour saw a Memegwesi going down a creek. It had the outline of a man, but only its face was visible, the body being concealed beneath a huge growth of whiskers.
John Manatuwaba, recalled this encounter with the Memegwesi: “At the north end of Parry Sound, in what white men call Split Rock Channel, there is a crag known to the Indians as Memegwesi’s Crag. Some natives once set night lines there, but their trout were always stolen.”
At last one of the men sat up all night to watch for the thief. At dawn he saw a stone boat manned by two Memegwesi approaching, one a woman, the other bearded like a monkey. The watcher awakened his companions and they pursued the stone boat, which turned around and called to the Indians, “Now you know who stole your trout. Whenever you want calmer weather give us some tobacco, for this is our home.” The boat and its occupants then entered the crag and disappeared.
Jenness also discovered that there are two kinds of invisible Indians, both closely akin to manidos. “One kind has no name, the other is called bagudzinishinabe or ‘Little Wild Indian.’ To see an individual of either kind confers the blessing of attaining old age.”
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