George Blondin
Guest columnist
Monday, December 20, 2004
The following two stories tell of how individuals received medicine power.
Sheep tale
There was a young couple travelling in the mountain area. They had a son who was very young. He was just starting to play outside by himself. The parents recognized that their son acted queer. They said, "Maybe our son is a medicine power being." So they paid attention to what the boy did. The young boy would go into the bush, but always come back right away. The parents decided to spy on their son to see where he went.
One morning the parents followed the boy. It wasn't very far. At the foot of a mountain there was a small shallow lake with a sand bar. There was a baby lamb with its mother. The boy started to play with the baby lamb. They really enjoyed playing. The parents quietly left them, now that they knew what the boy did.
Later, the parents got a very strong medicine man to look into the boy's life to see why he acted queer. The medicine man reported that the boy was very powerful in medicine power. He told the parents the boy had medicine power for sheep and other wildlife also. He told them, therefore, to be very careful how they raised the boy. The parents were told to let him stay alone until he was an adult. Later on the boy became a very strong medicine power person and the Dene public really benefited. Wherever they hunted, this boy always killed wildlife and shared with others.
Eagle's gift
It was not long ago, about 1910, when a large group travelled on the shores of Great Bear Lake. There were seven families.
The group of travellers had two outboard motors and they helped each other travel by pulling canoes. One day a big storm came up and the waves were too big for small canoes. Everybody had to go to shore. The next day, the storm was the same.
Two of the men decided to hunt on the land that day. Paul Blondin and his married son Edward followed some moose tracks, but they were old. They hunted all day with only a break for lunch. In the evening they wanted to go home. They had no food. Paul said it was a good-sized moose and they should camp and try again the next day. Edward didn't say anything, so they camped that night and only had tea.
Edward noticed an eagle flying around. He knew his father had eagle medicine power. Paul stood up and yelled. The eagle circled and came close. Paul talked to the eagle in a queer language. The eagle took off, but came back right away. It dropped a big fresh trout into Paul's camp. Father and son enjoyed good food instead of just tea through this medicine power action.
The next day, Paul and Edward shot two moose. They got the moose back to the group. It was so large the group ate good from there on. It must be wonderful to have the use of medicine power to help your people.
- George Blondin is the author of two books, a member of the Order of Canada and a respected Dogrib elder