THERE ARE FIVE LaRoses. First the LaRose who poisoned Mackinnon, went to mission school, married Wolfred, taught her children the shape of the world, and traveled that world as a set of stolen bones. Second, her daughter LaRose, who went to Carlisle. This LaRose got tuberculosis like her own mother, and like the first LaRose fought it off again and again. Lived long enough to become the mother of the third LaRose, who went to Fort Totten and bore the fourth LaRose, who eventually became the mother of Emmaline, the teacher of Romeo and Landreaux. The fourth LaRose also became the grandmother of the last LaRose, who was given to the Ravich family by his parents in exchange for a son accidentally killed.
In all of these LaRoses there was a tendency to fly above the earth. They could fly for hours when the right songs were drummed and sung to support them. Those songs are now waiting in the leaves, half lost, but the drumming of the water drum will never be lost. This ability to fly went back to the first LaRose, whose mother taught her to do it when her name was still Mirage, and who had learned this from her father, a jiisikid conjurer, who’d flung his spirit all the way around the world in 1798 and come back to tell his astonished drummers that it was no use, white people covered the earth like lice.
Old Story 3
WHAT TASTES SO good? This was the man’s wife asking.
The blood of your husband, the snake. I have made him into broth, said the husband.
The woman was furious and ran to the tree where her snake lived. She knocked three times, but it did not emerge and she knew it was killed. While she was gone, her husband plunged the two little boys into the ground, for safety.
That doesn’t sound very safe, said LaRose.
This time Ignatia didn’t answer, just kept on with the story.
When the woman ran back, her husband cut off her head. Then he rose into the air to flee away into the sky.
How could he do that? asked LaRose.
In those olden old days, said Ignatia, remember, before this earth existed, those people had all kinds of power. They could talk to anything and it would answer.
I mean how could he cut off her head, said LaRose.
But Ignatia had resolved to ignore all questions.
After a while, said Ignatia, the woman’s head opened its eyes.
Scary, said LaRose, with respect.
The head asked the dish where her children were. She asked all of the belongings in the lodge, but they would not tell. At last a stone did tell her that her husband had sunk the children into the earth, and that now they were fleeing underground. The stone said that he had given them four things—power to make a river, fire, a mountain, a forest of thorns.
So the head began to follow those children. It cried out, My children, wait for me! You are making me cry by leaving me!
Ignatia’s voice was wicked and wheedling. LaRose looked aghast but leaned closer.
Really scary, he said. Keep going.
The little boy was riding on his big brother’s back, and he kept telling his little brother that the head was not really their mother. Yes it is! Yes it is! said the little brother.
My children, my dear children, do not leave me behind, called the head. I beg you!
The little brother wanted to go back to the mother, but the older brother took a piece of punk wood and threw it behind him, calling out, Let there be fire! Far and wide, a fire blazed. But the head kept rolling through fire and began to catch up with them.
The boy threw down a thorn. At once a forest of thorns sprang up, and this time the rolling head was really blocked. But the head called to the brother of the snake, the Great Serpent, and that serpent bit through those thorn trees and made a passage. So it managed to catch up with him.
The brother threw down a stone and up sprang a vast mountain. Yet that rolling head got a beaver with iron teeth to chew down that mountain, and it kept on pursuing the children.
The brothers were very tired by now and threw down a skin of water to make a river. By mistake it landed not behind them, but in front of them. Now they were trapped.
LaRose nodded, caught in the story.
But the Great Serpent took pity on them and let them onto his back. They went across the river. When the rolling head reached the river, it begged to be carried across. The Great Serpent allowed the head to roll onto its back, but halfway across the serpent dumped it off.
Sturgeon will be your name, said the Great Serpent. The head became the first sturgeon.
What is a sturgeon? asked LaRose.
It’s an ugly kind of fish, said Ignatia. Those fish were the buffalo of our people once. They still have them up in the big northern lakes and the rivers.
Okay, said LaRose. So that’s the end?
No. Those two boys wandered around and by accident, the younger boy was left behind. He was all alone.
Now I must turn into a wolf, said the little boy.
That’s interesting, said LaRose. Just to become a wolf.
When his older brother found him, then the two walked together. This older brother became a being who could do many things—some places he is known as Wishketchahk, some as Nanabozho, and he has other names. He was kind of foolish, but also very wise, and his little brother the wolf was always by his side. He made the first people, Anishinaabeg, the first humans.
Huh, said LaRose. So what’s the moral of this story?
Moral? Our stories don’t have those!
Ignatia puffed her cheeks in annoyance.
They call this an origin story, said Malvern, also annoyed, but precise.
Like, ah, like Genesis, said Ignatia. But there’s lots more that happens, including a little muskrat who makes the earth.