Purified Words

Purified Words

by Tanamá Kao

Anishinaabe cultural consultation by Lilin Houle

Matilda Warren's life changed forever, sometime in mid-February, 1853. When she asked about the whereabouts of her husband, one of his sisters told her, “He didn’t say. He just said it was urgent. He left you a note on the bed.” Mathilda’s hands trembled as she held the letter that her husband, William, left. She broke the red wax seal with dread. She couldn’t read it; not yet. The abandoned wife threw the envelope on the bed along with herself. Weeping, she screamed, “Why did you let him leave when it's so cold out?” His escape to New York stabbed her heart with more intensity than the thought of his impending death. “How could you allow this?” Mathilda knew that she would never enjoy her husband’s soft kisses or the regal reassurance of his voice again in their home by the Mississippi. Any attempts at comfort were met by unladylike screams of, “Get out! GET OUT!” Resigned with the futility of attempting to calm her, everyone left Mathilda alone with her mourning.

The loyal wife regained her composure, in spite of herself, after vomiting into the chamber pot. Dispensing with all daintiness, she drank straight from the nearest pitcher; a delicate milk glass garden of delight. She spit the disgust out of her mouth as if she were some dirt-encrusted prospector out West that failed to find his gold. After taking a deep breath, Mathilda opened the thin paper chest that held her husband’s final treasure: the written word.

My Dearest Mathilda,

I apologize for leaving you, as I soon will be travelling to New York to find a publisher and look for a doctor that can cure me of my ailment. You tell me that my lungsare too weak for exertion, yet I must. Please burn this missive after you read it, for I do not want it to fall into the hands of those who would slur my name. Know the truth of my heart, in case I don’t make it back home. I owe you that much.

Admittedly, I ruminate far too much on the betrayal perpetrated by the Office of Indian Affairs and its accursed bureaucracy, after depriving me of $20,000 in wages, over lies, their own ineptitude, insufferable forms, and the unpredictable affairs of Indian intrigues. Although this book will be the death of me, it holds the only hope I have to provide for us as consumption ravages my body, especially after most of my so-called European friends and supporters in St. Paul, abandoned me. William T. Boutwell, a man who educated me on the Bible and gave me his friendship from the time I was a boy, turning his back on me, hurt the most. It’s as if the Anglo part of my Anglojibway heritage never existed. Not even the red man treats me with such savagery.

Mathilda tittered. William’s sardonic sense of humor about their shared race and how others perceived it, felt like a playful embrace. She recognized the civility of their Ojibwe relatives, as her husband did. Neither one truly understood why their European relatives held them in such low-esteem. The only other option was to agonize about the perception, so laughter felt better.

Mathilda, know that they will never accept us; no matter how civilized we become, no matter how much we adopt their habits and their comport, no matter how European our fathers were, and no matter how we’re seen by our mothers' people. We will never be accepted as one of them. I have exerted every effort in my power to become a respectable man who follows their norms, but to them, I will be nothing more than a treacherous Indian.

My dreams of a unified Ojibway Nation and peace with the white man were nothing than the delusion of a man not Indian enough to be Indian. And while I will never truly be Ojibway, as I await my death, I know that I am a wise and welcome relative among our maternal kin. Sadly, I am nothing to the white man, but a tool to be used until I outlive my usefulness, then tossed aside into a scrap pile full of rusted and forgotten tools that will be smelted and erased from history. Smelting pot indeed! I refuse to submit to this fate. I find J. Hector St. John’s “melted man” brand of American utopianism, to be distasteful.

Without university schooling as a historian and my mediocre understanding of the Ojibway tongue and culture, I lacked the desire to write, let alone finish this tome. Nevertheless, because of my standing in society and my rage over countless indignities and treacheries, as well as my ability to deal diplomatically with the white man, I must. If I don’t finish this book, who will? The illiterate elder who, in spite of his natural wisdom, could not so much write the alphabet in block print like a child? The European who uses history as a boasting stump?

As someone in my unique position, I weakly grasped the pen I am using to write this missive, to continue writing a history of a vanishing people, uncertain of its prospects for publication. I persevered, nevertheless, even when I wrote while being propped up by pillows.

I sometimes fear that the white man’s final solution to the Indian problem will be to completely obliterate Indigenous bloodlines out of existence. Sometimes I fear that those bloodlines include those of half-breeds like yours and mine. Nevertheless, I refuse to let the world forget the tribesmen that inhabited these lands and their ways. I pray that the Ojibway do not go the way of the fierce Mayan and the peaceable Taino. It seems that extermination will be our fate if the European-American-led government succeeds in its terrific campaign of genocide.

Pray that my spirit will outrun the hands of time for long enough to escape their grasp. May I see this book to completion before my body gets reaped by death’s scythe, and should I fail, pray that trustworthy men finish this quixotic task. My spirit will not be broken by taunts like that of a delicate girl, and I aim not give the treacherous full-blooded European the satisfaction of crushing yet another red man, and certainly, not one of a mixed-blood like myself.

I am very hesitant to call myself Ojibway, because it is not the custom to accept us as such, but what else can I be? What else can we be? Is that a question you can answer? I don’t wish to disrespect the Ojibway elders and their irregular traditions, but like the negro, even a small drop of blood that does not belong to Europe, will taint us in the eyes of those who despise Amerind blood.

I will die a man of dignity, but I must let go of these words to make peace with my maker, whoever that unknowable Spirit might be. Furthermore, I shall never allow the white man to use my words as self-incrimination, as I indulge in this renunciation of a person I will never be allowed to be: a pure-blooded Anglo. I hope that my legacy is one of decorum and a credit to my mother's people, even if I am not respected nor fully accepted by the peoples of our parents.

This is why I beg you to burn these letters, my beloved. Burn any notes that might incriminate me as well. My legacy must remain a merit to our true people, even if they will never fully accept us as their own. I will let you know the whereabouts of my words, so you and our children can hunt them down like wolves. I also ask you to find someone to tell what you remember of the manuscript, should you fail in this mission, so that the story of our people will be told. If I die before I get this manuscript published, please exhort whoever has it to get it printed in haste. Grovel if you must.

Mathilda shuddered at the thought of debasing herself for the sake of her husband’s legacy. Nevertheless, his request went far beyond a dying man’s wishes. It represented a defense against an existential threat menacing an entire civilization, and that mattered more than her comfort. The grieving woman begged God for forgiveness. The overbearing weight of defending her husband’s reputation, and perhaps, even the survival of an entire race, rested upon her shoulders.

Most importantly, I beg you to marry again and forgive me for what I did to you and our progeny. Make certain that you marry a full-blooded Indian or someone with an Indian father that is willing to adopt our entire family. I don’t want you, or our children, to continue to live in this limbo that us half-bloods with European fathers must inhabit.

All I want is for our Ojibway relatives to be dealt with fairly. That's why I will spend my dying breath trying to disseminate this history, or at least die trying, if I am not compensated for the work that I have done for the white man. I hope that the promises of my research being published turn out to be truer than the treaties made with countless tribes in the United States. Even if I don't live long enough to see remuneration for this thankless folly, I want those who deal with me to be as honorable as I am to them.

It's frustrating that I can't even get that minimal courtesy from the government that I worked so hard to support. I am a gentleman, and a man of my word. Was a handshake and the rigorous quality of my work, not enough to show my honor? I am not a snake, yet I read in the dailies, otherwise. So what if I didn't get the numbers that the white man wanted? I counted everyone accurately. So what if not everyone filled the forms in their entirety? How could they, when the questions made little sense in light of the circumstances at hand, and many illiterates could not understand them? So what if the Ojibway reacted predictably when the Europeans betrayed them? I should not bear the blame for the collapse of the negotiations between tribesmen and a dishonest race. How dare the white man lay the blame of their incompetence and malice on me? How dare they try to wash their culpability with our blood and poverty.

My mother's people see me as a wise relative, whose honesty and dealings exist beyond reproach. Why do my father's people view me with such contempt, when I have done everything to respect their traditions? Frankly, I try to be prudent, but there is only so much a man can do before he loses his patience.

Is it too much to ask for someone to employ basic arithmetic when counting a census? Is it too much to ask to be counted correctly? Would it be too much to ask to be allowed to exist on the record? I ponder this carefully, because I know that asking the wrong questions will cost me dearly. What is that cost worth, my soul—my soul? Is that cost worth my integrity? May the Lord and the spirits of nature have mercy on me as I consider this decision, because I fear that no one else will.

Mathilda, I hope this book serves as my final vengeance against the white man’s lies, in spite of my being ill-equipped to write it. I hope that this book shines a beacon of truth on our true people. Although I will never declare it in public, we are Ojibway, even if our elders say that we are not. The white man will not allow us to be anything else. I know these words are painful, but I am counting on you to do right, my treasure. Burn this letter, and let its memory be seared into your mind and heart. I am counting on you to complete this task, my brave and loyal wife.

 

With Loving Regard,

William

 

Mathilda hoped that no one would ask her about the letter. She tucked it into her collar before scouring the room for any bits of paper with her husband’s words. She read some of them. The future widow understood the value of these nuggets of information, and balked at theprospect of turning them to ashes. Her integrity precluded her from ignoring her beloved’s final wishes, but she could not bring herself to scorch the inheritance of posterity.

Internal compromise came as a welcomed visitor. Mathilda searched for blank notebooks. Her husband had many. To make certain that she could complete the task, she practiced forging his handwriting on a notepad that needed to be burnt anyhow.

Wiping her encrusted tears with a handkerchief dipped in water, the future widow sifted through the notes for incriminating details. In the assaying process, she separated the gold from the silt. She didn’t owe anyone the whole truth. That treasure belonged to her alone. Both her husband’s desires and the interests of history could be honored. It was dirty work, but necessary. She held the past’s future in her hands.

While thanking her relations for their patience, and apologizing for her hysteria, she concocted the totality of her plan. Atop the cook stove, she prepared a stew of beans, corn, winter squash, and slivers of salted venison. She fed the stove wood and paper, to purify her husband’s legacy. Mathilda repeated the process each day, making a different recipe passed on by her mother. People assumed that the aggrieved woman journaled to keep her feelings in check, so they left her alone with her cookery. In reality, she had no time for petty sentiment. The incineration of progressively larger notebooks along with tiny scraps continued, until every incriminating detail flew into the heavens. Only two notebooks full of carefully curated redactions remained.