33
Rough Justice

John Tanner passed the winter of 1817–18 hunting bison along the Assiniboine. He now planned to go in search of his white relatives in the coming year, and since it would entail a long separation from his wife and children, he wanted to leave them well provisioned in his absence. So he killed a great number of bison, drying the meat and pounding it into pemmican, and preserving the tongues and other choice parts in tallow in ten-gallon kegs. By the end of winter, he had made twenty large sacks of pemmican and filled ten kegs with tallow and meats.¹

Late in the season, he and Therezia received an urgent message from Therezia’s mother: they must both come at once to see her. Their band was then somewhat scattered over the prairie, and the old woman had recently encamped a few miles away from Tanner and Therezia with another small band of three lodges. Therezia wanted to leave the very next day, and Tanner consented. But that night he had a dream in which a young man came down through the smoke hole in his lodge and warned him not to go to his mother-in-law’s camp. He knew this person, this pawaganak, or dream visitor. He was the same figure who appeared to him in dreams whenever he made preparations for a medicine hunt. “You must not go to the place you propose to visit tomorrow,” the man intoned. “Look there,” he said, pointing, and Tanner saw some of his friends running toward him. Then the man pointed skyward. Looking up, Tanner saw a hawk with a banded tail circling above. Tanner awoke from the dream feeling apprehensive. He told Therezia she must go to her mother by herself.

Therezia insisted that he come, and he finally agreed, thinking he must not add to his mother-in-law’s suspicions. He and Therezia had barely started down the trail, however, when he saw the same hawk, flying close by. This stopped him dead in his tracks, for he saw at that moment with perfect clarity that the bird was his guardian spirit sent to warn him of evil. He told his wife a second time that she must go without him. Therezia would not agree to it. She belittled him for being afraid of her mother. Finally, he relented, saying nothing of his dream, and they continued on. The warrior ethic rose in him, and he resolved to face whatever challenge lay ahead.²

Just as he feared, his mother-in-law had laid a trap. When he got to her lodge he left his gun at her door, went in, and sat down beside Therezia’s two older sisters. He was wearing a capote with a large hood made of moose hide, and as he did not immediately remove the hood from his head he did not see his mother-in-law’s accomplice step from the shadows and raise his tomahawk. This man went by the name Waw-be-be-nais-sa, or White Bird (no relation to the lazy hunter of the same name who he had known many years before). Lately, Waw-be-be-nais-sa had become his antagonist, telling everyone that Tanner was a stranger in their village and that he bragged too much of being a great hunter. The two had come to blows twice, and when Tanner got the better of him in those scuffles Waw-be-be-nais-sa had tried to even the score by stabbing one of Tanner’s dogs.³

Now this man’s tomahawk came crashing down on the crown of Tanner’s head, and the blade would have surely split his skull in two had it not been for the thick hood. The blow knocked Tanner out. When he came to, he found himself surrounded by several women. He recognized the frightened faces of his two sisters-in-law but not his wife’s. Neither his mother-in-law nor the man with the tomahawk were anywhere to be seen. Oddly, he felt no pain, just the warm and sticky blood oozing from his scalp. The women were holding his arms, trying to pin him to the floor. As soon as he could raise himself up, he pulled away from them and stumbled out of the lodge, thinking that he must find his assailant. But he was no longer in possession of his gun. When he realized—still in a daze—that no one was coming forward to help him, he bolted from his mother-in-law’s camp and made for his own.⁴

The sight of Tanner staggering into camp without his wife brought the principal hunter, Sha-gwaw-koo-sink, running. The moment Tanner reached out and took him by the hand, his scalp wound opened and blood streamed down his face. Three of Sha-gwaw-koo-sink’s young men quickly gathered around, and one of them, Oto-pun-ne-be, with whom Tanner had often hunted, vowed to take revenge on the man who had tomahawked him. Safe among his friends, Tanner crawled into his lodge to rest.⁵

The next day, Therezia appeared at the door of their lodge with her mother. Tanner’s heart sank when he saw them standing there together, for he knew that his mother-in-law wanted him dead and he had to conclude that his wife must now be in league with her. His mother-in-law announced that the Ojibwas were making haste to leave, as it was thought that a Sioux war party was coming. Tanner said he was too weak to travel, that they should take the children and go without him. This they did. Many other families fled that same day, abandoning their lodges, their belongings, and their sunjegwuns hung with buffalo meat. Soon the entire encampment was deserted except for Tanner, his friend Oto-pun-ne-be, and a fourteen-year-old boy who was Oto-pun-ne-be’s cousin. Tanner lay prone for ten days while his friends took turns attending him or watching for signs of the enemy.

As soon as Tanner could travel, the three set out for Lake of the Woods. Their sole purpose now was to find Tanner’s assailant, Waw-be-be-nais-sa, and punish him. In two small canoes they threaded their way through the muskeg to the shore of the lake. There, they made camp and held a council. Oto-pun-ne-be and his cousin would canoe across to Plantation Island, where they felt confident of finding the guilty party in the Ottawa-Ojibwa village. Tanner, meanwhile, would pay a visit to the local trader. It was deemed easier for Oto-pun-ne-be to accomplish his mission if Tanner did not accompany him. On an agreed upon day, the three would meet back at their present camp and then return to Red River.⁶

Oto-pun-ne-be was a big, strong man with a generally peaceable disposition. People knew him as one who rarely fought unless it was in another man’s behalf. As soon as he entered the village, the Indians recognized the purpose of his visit. He went to the lodge of one of the principal chiefs, sat down, and waited for the man he was looking for to come meet him there. After a while, Waw-be-be-nais-sa appeared and sat down across from him. While the chief listened, Tanner’s assailant stated that he understood Oto-pun-ne-be’s purpose. He did not deny his part in the affair, nor did he offer an explanation, excuse, or apology for it. Rather, he gave his challenger a warning and an opportunity to reconsider. He pointed out that Oto-pun-ne-be had no brothers, for they had all been killed by the Long Knives (the Americans). He said it was foolish for him to count the Swallow as his brother, for the Swallow was himself a Long Knife, who masqueraded as an Indian. In answer, Oto-pun-ne-be said it was not true that the Long Knives had killed any brothers of his. But it was true he called the Swallow his brother, and regardless of his opponent’s view of the matter, he would avenge him as he would an Indian brother.⁷

With that, Oto-pun-ne-be stood up and pulled his opponent outside the chief’s lodge for a fight. Waw-be-be-nais-sa had some friends standing by, and as he and Oto-pun-ne-be began to circle one another these other men moved in closer. Seeing he was outnumbered, Oto-pun-ne-be drew a knife. The chief was right behind him and with a quick movement he caught his arm and made him drop the weapon. But with another vigorous gesture by the chief Waw-be-be-nais-sa’s seconds stepped back from the two combatants. Big Oto-pun-ne-be was allowed to charge his opponent and pummel him to the ground. Soon the men jumped in and overpowered him but not before he landed a few powerful blows and cracked some ribs. Thus, with the help of the chief and Waw-be-be-nais-sa’s seconds, the punishment was kept within bounds commensurate with the injury done to Tanner. After the combat was over, Oto-pun-ne-be and his young cousin were permitted to leave the village unmolested.⁸

While Oto-pun-ne-be was avenging his friend, Tanner’s condition improved enough that he was able to hunt and bring down a large animal. When the three men met up at their previous camp as planned, he gave them a feast. Tanner felt satisfied that two cracked ribs squared with a cut head, so the matter was settled. He was pleased to count Oto-pun-ne-be as his friend. And yet, the cause of the fracas was not lost on him: many in the tribe had come to regard him as a Long Knife, an alien, and even looked upon his friends with a jaundiced eye. With so much prejudice against him, he doubted that those like Oto-pun-ne-be would rally to his side forever.

Tanner and his two companions got back to their original encampment shortly before all the other Ojibwas returned. During their absence, no Sioux had ransacked their camp; the lodges remained just as they had left them. Tanner joined with everyone else in loading the canoes with their dried meat and possessions for the slow trip back to the village. In a few weeks, the move was complete. Now his family was well stocked with provisions to last a year or more. At last he was ready to go in search of his white relatives.⁹