In an Anishinaabe village, there lived an orphan boy. This poor child’s father died before he was even born, and then his mother passed from this world for the next soon after his birth.
The first name given to this baby boy by the women of his village was Blue Sky. The villagers agreed to call him Blue Sky to show the Great Creator that everyone living in this village will care for this orphan child. He was called Blue Sky by the women as their promise he would know the happiness a blue sky brings all the days of his life. The men called him Blue Sky as their promise they would teach him everything a man needs to know where ever he is found.
They called him Blue Sky to show the Great Creator that each one of the women of the village and each one of the men of this village would care for Blue Sky as if he was their own child each and every day.
This orphan boy lived long, long ago. It was before our ancestors first arrived in this place where our people have lived now for many generations. Blue Sky lived in the lands of our oldest ancestors to the East, in the days when our people were following the prophecy of the Great Megis.
This was so long ago the white man had not come and disturbed our life on Turtle Island.
The village where Blue Sky was born was very small. And the women who named him with their love bestowed it on him every day. Blue Sky would sleep next to the fire in one family’s wigwam for many nights. Then another family would invite him to share their wigwam and food and fire.
As he grew from a baby to a child he heard all of the stories told at all of the night fires.
As he grew to be a boy the men of the village taught him what a man must know. The men took him to the bay when they fished with torches blazing at night and stood in the shallows and speared the pike that came too close.
One of the men taught him how to use a sling to hunt small game. He showed Blue Sky the small rapids where the smooth round stones were found that made the most accurate shot.
Another man taught him how to make a bow and arrows and how to shoot straight and true.
Another man gave Blue Sky the drum his father had played at the clan fires and told him to listen to the sounds about him and Blue Sky tried to play them on his drum.
Because Blue Sky was an orphan he learned each skill and craft from the man in the village who knew it best. He grew to be a skillful hunter. When he went out fishing he always brought home a pike or a walleye.
There were nights where Blue Sky felt very lonely. When he heard a mother singing her songs gently to a crying baby, on those nights he wished he knew his mother. On those nights he wished he had his own father. On those nights he might leave his bed by the night fire and search for a place to be alone. He would take his father’s drum with him and play it softly so only his mother and father’s spirits could hear it.
Most of the time Blue Sky was happy. When he was happy he would practice playing his drum to the beat of the young men’s dances and he learned the songs of praise to Gitche Manitou.
The time passed and Blue Sky grew older. He was ready to leave childhood behind. It was time for him to go to the tall mountain his village held sacred. This was where the boys of his village would fast and pray to Gitche Manitou. This was the place they would pray for the dream vision that would show them how they must live their lives as men.
It was time for Blue Sky to pray for his vision but like many of the young boys he was afraid. He was afraid to be alone on the top of the mountain. He was afraid no dream would come to show him his life’s purpose. He did not tell the people of the village of his fears. He tried to hide them. But when he was alone by the bank of the river he would beat his father’s drum and the sound would drive his fears away.
The night before Blue Sky would leave for the mountain top all of the people gathered at the village fire circle. Some of the men remembered the nights they spent alone in the sacred place, waiting for their vision to find them, searching for signs that would lead them to understand their vision. They told Blue Sky the stories of what their visions meant to their lives.
As the night went on the Nokomis sang a song about Blue Sky’s mother and father. The children who had earlier danced around the fire now lay quietly at the sides of their mothers and fathers.
Blue Sky sat alone.
The next day the men of the village led Blue Sky to the tall mountain ridge that looked out upon the spirit Waubun, the spirit of the East and the new day sun. The place they led him to was the highest peak in all the Four Directions.
The men could see Blue Sky was afraid. But it was time and they could see he was ready. They left him there alone.
Blue Sky fasted the first day, eating only the handful of blueberries that grew on the bushes near the peak.
He was afraid of sitting alone on the mountaintop, but he knew this was his time.
He was afraid, so he prayed to Gitche Manitou as the new sun rose on the second day.
And he prayed to Gitche Manitou as the wind rushed by.
He prayed to the spirit of Maang the Loon when the wind brought a loon’s cry from the distant lake as the sun settled for its rest.
He prayed to the spirit of Gookooko’oo the Owl when its call echoed across the valley in the night.
But still Blue Sky was afraid. He was first afraid to be all alone. Then he grew fearful there was someone, or maybe something, back there in the forests, watching him. Once he was sure he heard something but when he turned there was nothing to see.
On the third day when Migizi the Eagle circled overhead and called out to the world the boy prayed to the spirits of all of the animals in the forests that heard the eagle’s cry. And then he thanked Gitche Manitou for all of the gifts he had been given.
He was watching the sunrise on the fourth day when his vision came to him. In the bright morning sun light he saw how favored he had been to have all the men and all the women of this village care for him as if he were their first son. For in his vision he was standing before the greatest chief of all the First Nations people and he was telling this chief how the people of his village honored Gitche Manitou. He was standing in front of the greatest chief to tell him that his fathers and his mothers cared for him every day to give thanks to the Great Creator.
In his vision he could not see this greatest chief, for he was covered by a great mountain of snow white clouds that shined brightly. Just as the clouds were parting and Blue Sky would see the greatest chief, he was startled by a sound behind him, just outside the cleared mountain peak, and he turned to see what it was. There was nothing there, just a branch moving back into its place, and now his vision had left him.
But the meaning was clear to him. Blue Sky must find the greatest chief of all the people and tell him the story of his mothers and fathers of the village and of the many acts of kindness they have given to him.
This would be how he would begin his life as a man. Not to find the greatest chief of the Anishinaabe. Not the greatest chief of the Odawa or the Pottawattamie, the closest brothers of the Anishinaabe, who with us are the people of the Three Fires. His vision was to find the greatest chief of all the tribes of the First Nations. And in his vision the spirits were inviting him to begin his journey.
When the people of his village learned of the vision that came to Blue Sky they were proud of him. For every man of the village thought Blue Sky was his son. Every woman was his mother. They knew Gitche Manitou had chosen their son for a special journey.
Because Blue Sky was a son to everyone, the people of the village were sad for him to leave. There was such danger traveling so far alone in the forest for a young man who just the day before had been a boy. He could lose his way. He might get hurt climbing a mountain ridge or he might starve if he could not feed himself on such a long journey. And there were many evil spirits who live in the deepest parts of the forest.
The worst of these evil spirits was Windigo, the terrible one. Windigo, the cannibal.
That night the people of Blue Sky’s village had a great feast in his honor. They celebrated his vision. In their songs they asked Gitche Manitou to watch over him like a first son. To protect him and to feed him. To lead him to sweet water and to dry shelter. And to keep him safe from Windigo.
The people sang deep into the night.
They asked Blue Sky to play his father’s drum and sing his song of his vision. Blue Sky beat the drum while the people of his village danced. They danced until even the young men grew tired.
That night the people gave many gifts to Blue Sky to help him on his journey.
They presented these gifts in a beautiful pouch. Each of his mothers had sewn their most precious beads and shells in the design that decorated the pouch.
The pouch was filled with many things he would need on his journey.