By Yuri ANDRUKHOVYCH, The Day
Serpent Mount, a locality about an hour's drive from Toronto, received
its name from a serpentine chain of hills. Actually, they are burial mounds
where lie people who once lived here by the lake.
Three or four years ago one could get here without any appointments
and other formalities. The beautiful lake, verdant islands and banks, as
well as its whimsically shaped boulders make the landscape inimitably authentic
and a very strong tourist attraction. Now a visitor without an appointment
will not feel comfortable here, for the land has been returned to the Ojibwa
(Chippewa) Indians, descendants of those in the burial mounds. Now they
have their lake, islands, forests, and ancestors' skeletons. Of course,
this does not mean that an outsider will be ordered to get out of Serpent
Mount, just that every visit must be agreed with the chief.
Greg Kowi, Chief of Hiawatha First Nation, was waiting for us at the
agreed time and place, a special compact building facing the entrance to
the park-reserve. We were greeted by a real legendary giant, some two meters
in height, very hefty, about my age, wearing jeans, a Windbraker, and sporting
a long jet-black ponytail. To me he looked like a huge veteran rock star
of the 1970s. On the way to the lake and museum he told us about how he
became chief. He was elected several years ago for the first time. By Ojibwa
tradition he had addressed a speech to the "electorate" and together with
the other contenders stood in a line facing the people. Then the vote started,
using the running ballot, meaning that people would run up and behind each
candidate; the winner had to have the largest number of runners lined up
behind him. In other words, the largest number of people ready to follow
him. Incidentally, this Indian law caused a sort of collision as the Canadian
law seems to provide for secret ballot, meaning that the running ballot
was, strictly speaking, invalid as undemocratic. Fortunately, Canadian
society is increasingly aware of its historical guilt before indigenous
peoples, and it was on public initiative that Serpent Mount was returned
to the Indians. Now this guilt says schools must open with instruction
in the Chipewyan language. This guilt also influences political decisions:
among other things the indigenous people are exempt from all taxes.
Of course, there are problems. Western liberalism multiplied by Western
value universalism sometimes yields absurd results. In order to be tax-exempt
the Indians must preserve their ethnic purity, in other words conform to
Article 6-1. Once he or she transgresses that rule by marrying someone
from a different ethnic group their children's tax immunity will lower
substantially (Article 6-2). Chief Greg said that his nation was rather
small, some 400 persons. To prevent genetic degradation, they had to be
exogamous, thus losing substantial advantages. After all there is the chimera
as love, and love does not take orders.
It was simple to decide to give the Indians back their land, but the
Indians could not accept it - not because they did not want to, but because
they were unable. Man cannot own the land, because the land is a living
thing, a deity. In Ukraine our fat-ass collective farm feudal lords balancing
somewhere to the left of the Parliament's Left-Center would never dream
of such an argument against land privatization.
This land and lake were once used to grow rice. In fact, the Chief's
ancestors were called Rice People. We saw their canoes, arrowheads, eating
utensils, pottery, carved bone decorations in the museum and the chief
commented on every item. We had to strain our ears to hear the wind whisper,
grass and leaves rustle, noises in the grass, and voices from and behind
the burial mounds. "The serpent is my people's totem, hence the shape of
the burial sites," he told us and then identified himself in full (I suppose
as a sign of special trust): Nimke Kwa Ni Ni, meaning Thunder-Bird-Man,
because on the night he was born there had been thunderstorm and the lake
bird's cawing screeched out her own Song of Hiawatha.






