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Taylor
Taylor
I had a lot of fun at the Menominee Indian Reservation. It was a little nerve racking however. After talking to the kids though, I realized that they would fit in to a normal public high school and that made it a little easier to be there. The first thing we did when we got there was take a tour of the reservation. Dave, our tour guide, knew a lot about the Menominee. He was very interesting to listen to. He told us a cool story about how at the Wolf River Dells, a battle between a thunderbird (good) and a serpent (evil) went on for many days. Finally, the thunderbird pushed the serpent into the rocks and he can never get out. The Menominee say that if you listen closely you can still hear him hissing in the rocks, trying to escape. Dave also pointed out the thunderbird’s claw marks in the rocks above the dells. I though it was a really cool story and I wish that our culture had some stories like that. He also told us that Posoh means hello, goodbye and welcome in the Menominee language. That seemed really weird to me that one word can have three different meanings and probably more! Dave told us about many historical things: in 1854 the reservation was granted, 235,000 acres were on the reservation and all about the different clams like the Bear Clan, the keepers of law, and the Wolf Clan, hunters and gatherers. He has to be very knowledgeable because he is the Tribal Historical Foundation Officer. Dave is the perfect man for the job!
Next, we went to the school. I couldn’t believe how small it was! When we walked into the classroom, there were only about eleven students in there! I was amazed. They only had two classrooms for the whole eighth grade! It would be kind of neat to go to such a small school, but I don’t know if I would like it as much as I like going to a big school. AS I said, we went into the classroom and we sat in there for a class period. It was very different from the classes at the Junior High! The students were making lacrosse sticks. I learned many things about the Menominee culture from that teacher. For one, in their culture it is rude to constantly ask questions. He also talked about how men used to fast in order to become men. They were not allowed to sleep in the lodge when they fasted and could only take tobacco, drums and fire in the forest with them. Men also had to go into extremely hot sweat lodges before and after fasting. Traditions have changed however and few do it anymore. Also when women were going through their cycle, they weren’t supposed to touch anything or any males. For a full year, they couldn’t walk barefoot or touch anything of nature or anything that didn’t need to be touched. That really stuck in my mind because I thought that that was really different and in our culture would be looked at as unnecessary. Another thing that I though was sort of cool was that the whole school says a prayer every morning. Everyone also purifies their spirit every Monday by burning cedar and sage, also known to them as smudging.
Next, we had lunch. I thought that their lunch would be very different from ours. Maybe that they would eat some kind of cultural food, but we had just regular pasta. It was very good. They only thing that was really different from the Junior High was that they prayed before the meal. We sat by some of the Menominee girls and they talk about the same things that we dot at lunch: when they want to go shopping, what they’re doing over the weekend and what boys they like. That was a real eye opener for me. I guess that I thought that all the Native Americans were very spiritual and never said a bad word about anybody, but I was obviously wrong.