Guest Blogger: Arthur Haines - How Being Healthy Protects Drinking Water

Once again I have the honour of welcoming my good friend Arthur's words onto this blog. In the near future I will be interviewing Arthur on the Living the Thirteen Moons Podcast. If you wish to know more about him, check out the Delta Institute of Natural History, or his Youtube Channel.  The reason I wanted this on my blog is three-fold. The first and foremost reason is because I care about water quality, for both us and the environment itself. This reason is enough for me to want this sort of knowledge on here. However I also work at a wonderful program called TRACKS Youth Outreach, which focuses on teaching Native and non-Native youth about science, especially environmental science. You can find us on Facebook here. We have been teaching a lot about water health and what our people in Western culture can do to protect the water that is on this big, beautiful planet. This is another good reason to pass on this information regarding water health. Finally, with the recent proceedings here in Canada, we have lost a lot of fundamental protection for our lakes, rivers and streams. It is up to us now as citizens to do our part to take care of our waterways. This again is a fundamental reason as to why this article is vital for our continuing survival, not to mention our current environment's. So a big big miigwetch to Arthur Haines, and without further adieu...

How Being Healthy Protects Drinking Water

First, let’s build awareness of the issue: pharmaceutical drugs (among other chemicals) are routinely detected in public drinking water supplies here in the United States. One of the primary sources of these drugs is people--specifically, those who use pharmaceutical drugs. When you use a drug (prescription or over-the-counter) some of that drug passes un-metabolized through your body and is excreted into the septic system. Those drugs then enter the ground water or sewer systems (depending on where you live) and ultimately end up in the bodies of wild animals or in the bodies of people (especially if you live in an area with waste water treatment facilities that recycle water for drinking). So, to summarize this paragraph, many people in metropolitan areas (and some people in rural areas) are being exposed to low, constant doses of antibiotic, antifertility, pain-relieving, and mood-altering medications. Even aquifers have been found to be contaminated by synthetic medicines.

The amount of these drugs in the public water system is low (it would be described as trace). That has led many water suppliers to claim there is no harm caused by the presence of these compounds. However, no test has shown that exposure is safe (especially in the long run) and some recent research finds that harm is being caused. Remember that most medicine is to be taken for a short time and then discontinued. But when you get low doses in your drinking water, you are constantly exposed to a myriad of chemicals--in one review, 63 drugs were found during testing in watersheds around cities and 56 of those were in the public water supply. These low dose medicines in the water have been shown to slow growth of human embryonic kidney cells, speed cancer cell proliferation, and alter blood cell activity. Further, there is evidence that adding chlorine, a common component of urban drinking water, makes the pharmaceutical drugs more toxic. There is no doubt that some wildlife species are being affected. For example, male fish in some areas are being feminized.

So, what do you do about this? Well, you may decide to drink only spring water. That would protect you and your family (note: your home filtration system was likely not designed to remove trace amounts of pharmaceutical drugs). But what about those people who can’t afford bottled water? And what about the other-than-human-persons we share this world with? This is a case where we need to be unselfish. Drugs in the water supply are going to come back to harm us. What if your child lives or one day moves to a metropolitan area and becomes exposed to these compounds? The solution for this dilemma is that we need to be healthier. We need to ingest fewer drugs, wash and adorn ourselves with more eco-friendly products (because those end up in the water as well), and even consider what our toilet paper is doing to the world (recycled paper contains Bisphenol-A, an endocrine disruptor, which also ends up in the water supply).

Regardless of your diet and lifestyle, most people will become ill and be in need of medicine at some point in their life. This is where I encourage people to turn to natural products, even better, those medicines that they gather from the landscapes around their homes. These plants and fungi are ever present in the ecosystem. They are eaten by animals (who excrete them into the environment). They decay in the fall, releasing minerals and various natural compounds. They are all around us, in the leaf litter and in the ground water, and anyone who spends time in the outdoors is constantly exposed to them. Based on what we know, constant exposure to wild plant phytochemicals has a role in generating health (so long as toxins are avoided). Hypothetically, if I were to ingest staghorn sumac for an infection, I would ultimately be excreting chemicals that are already found in the watershed (where I gathered them in the first place). There is no introduction of new or synthetic compounds. No need to gain resistance to novel drugs. No need to worry about the secondary impacts.

Being healthy is the primary way we protect our water supplies from pharmaceutical drugs. Using natural medicine is the second line of defense. Of course, the over-arching principle here is that we need to be aware of what our actions do to the world (and the many ways that poor health hurts everyone, not just the person afflicted with the ailment). Remember: humans did not weave the web of life, they are merely a strand in it. Whatever humans do to the web, they do to themselves (adapted from Chief Seattle).

Meat and preparing for the cold times.

Back in early November, my cousin got his first deer. A lot of emotions are brought up for a person when they see a large animal die right in front of them. Rabbits, ducks and fish are just as important, and I am not discrediting their deaths as non-emotional or anything like that. However to see something as large as a deer, or bear or moose die for the first time is for many of us extremely moving.

I remember getting my first deer (only a few years ago, even though I have been hunting for literally half of my life), and how messed up it left me for a long few weeks. I had caught, killed and cleaned many a fish and bird. I had butchered countless deer and moose. Death of a fellow moving, breathing creature was definitely not something new for me. However as I watched the deer (a young but very large buck) seem to suddenly freeze on impact from my slug penetrating his chest and abdomen, and then keel over as if his legs were made out of rebar rather than tendons and muscles, it effected me in a way that to this day I cannot fully explain. I was happy, but disturbed. I knew I had just provided for my family. Acquired a hide and brains for new material. I knew the bones and sinew would bless me with more supplies. But to see a life drain out of an anima with such sudden swiftness (he thrashed for but a moment) is truly emotional. I take the subject of catching any animal very seriously -regardless of size or species. But at the same time, it is joyful. I whoop. I shout. I even laugh. However during that, I do what my people have always done; I pour water into the animal's mouth, I offer tobacco in thanks, I sing a small song of gratitude. I make sure the being sees the western sky. These things are tasks many Anishnaabe men (and women) feel obligated to do for the animal whose life we extinguished. Its' a give and take. The animal has done their work (sacrificed themselves' for us), now it is our turn to make good on the deal: by making sure we honour the animal.

However, this does not mean jokes are taboo, or banished. We laugh, and joke; "Holy crap this deer's liver is big enough to belong to a Frat Boy!", or "That goose is small enough to be a duck!". This is not disrespect in our eyes. Its' having fun with the animal who is still present. Teasing is a sign of affection in countless Native cultures here in Canada, just as it is in many non-Natve cultures. However, for us, it is really the way of life. Joking, and comedy are what bond all humans, and to find something humorous in an emotional moment is really a beautiful thing.

In this video, myself and my cousin butcher the deer that he caught just the night before. We skinned her in the dark, as we don't use knives between the gutting and butchering process. We skin the deer immediately after it is hung up, as this cools the deer, and is much faster than if we left the hide on for too long. It is also much better for the hide, as decomposition can happen in mere hours in the right circumstances. You won't hear much dialogue other than the joking (which I mentioned a moment ago). But it shows almost every step taken after the skin and head are removed.

I want to say a few things about this deer. I cannot speak on behalf of my cousin. I do not know if he went through the same emotions as I have. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. I do know however that this deer was taken down with the most humane of a shot any hunter could ask for. She maybe ran 40 feet in total, if that. We tracked her immediately, and very early on we could tell she would be dead just around the corner. It was a clean kill, and she never suffered. We found her within two minutes of tracking, and she was already passed on. It was the perfect shot. I was there when she was seen, I was there when she was shot, and I helped with every step of the process once that deer was hit. I am very honest when I say that I am proud of my cousin, and was deeply honoured to be able to share that moment with him. It is a moment that I know will live on with him for the rest of his life.

While we are on the subject of meat, maybe I should discuss some further developments regarding acquiring meat. The goose we caught was a winged bird that another hunter had shot earlier in the day. We saw the young northern Canada goose hiding under a dock, and it was very clear that the wing was severely damaged. It was part mercy, and part need for food. I got in my canoe and when I tried to get him, he had paddled away! He was struggling to stay above the water, and even then got well over a kilometre from shore before I caught up to him. This shows the tenacity of wildlife when survival is on the line. I have seen a squirrel get hit with a broadhead from twenty feet away, and still run through seven different trees before finally succumbing to the injury. I have tracked a lung-shot deer for over two kilometres. Once I was within range, he was put out of his pain very swiftly with a twelve-gauge shotgun blast to the head. He was dead on impact. Once again, I took tobacco out and offered him thanks. I opened his mouth and let him have a drink, and while paddling back to shore, I sang him a song of gratitude, always keeping his head facing west.

Beyond meat that has already been acquired, I have a few projects underway. This weekend I will be purchasing some steel rods. I will be basement-forging them into special spikes made specifically for spearfishing. The Anisnaabeg are well known for their history as fishermen, especially with fish fences, and with spears. I will be making the shafts six or seven feet long out of cedar. This is because cedar is straight and light. Once done, two spikes that are seven inches long and barbed all the way up. We live where pickerel, bass, pike and perch all flourish, and our ancestors' way of life revolved around spearfishing.

The other project is the buckthorn bow. This project was originally a theory I had after spending a week with Mors Kochanski. The theory was that I could take a dense, yet elastic wood, that is an invasive specie that is overwhelming our forests, and produce serviceable and strong bows from it. Purging Buckthorn is a very invasive tree that overshadows other forest plants and goes to leaf earlier and remains in leaf longer than most of our native hardwoods. So my goal was to be able to give our native trees a bit of an advantage, be repeatedly cutting back the buckthorn, and using it for tasks (knife and axe handles, basketry material, bows and lodge poles) and leave our native trees be. So far the theory I had ha already been proven by a gentleman over at Primitive Archer, and even Quicky Bows I have seen made by Skeet Sutherland from Sticks and Stones Wilderness School. However, ever being the man trying to return to a traditional Anishnaabe diet and lifestyle, I have decided to produce an Ojibwa style Flatbow from this wood. If you want to see a good example of an Ojibwa bow, check out this video from my friend Mike at Boarrior Bows. This in my eyes is something very important and specific, as my people are currently struggling with the idea of self-determination through decolonization. In my eyes, we cannot go back in time. We must move forward, and with that, we must accept modern influences, or at least introduce western materials into our more "primitive" technologies. A good example is beer bottle glass arrowheads, such as the one produced in the video of Brian from TrackersNW. These are very popular and very very effective. I have also made knives, and spearheads from the glass from old televisions. I've been saving a good piece to later make into a clovis point, such as the one being made in this video with stone. My belief is that if we take traditional technology and philosophies, and blend them with the materials available now by recycling and reusing, it can be a lot better for all of us. Again, which would be better for our environment? Practising our traditional skills with materials that are already at risk (one of the best woods in this part of Canada is white ash, which is being targetted by the Emerald Ash Borer), or with materials that are invading or causing problems in our environment (such as purging buckthorn)?

So as we speak, I have several three-inch and four-inch diameter staves of purging buckthorn seasoning in my house for the winter. I stripped the bark, and dipped the ends in pine pitch to prevent cracking. By Baakade Giizis (The Hunger Moon/February), I will be able to start shaping them into traditional style bows.

I should have a video up sometime next week about the fishing spear making. Hope you all enjoy it!

The seasonal food of the Raspberry Moon

This time of year is known among my people (The Missisauga Anishnaube/Ojibway) as the Raspberry Moon. In my language, Raspberry Moon is translated as Miskomin Giizoonh (Giizis in other dialects). This is because the raspberries are beginning to ripen. North of here, among the Manitoulin Island and Lake Superior Anishnaube, it is called Miinan Giizis, or the Blueberry Moon. We don't have many blueberries growing wild in this region, and our raspberries ripen before theirs' do, so regional differences must always apply. This will be an ongoing subject that I frequently bring up during each Moon.

Many fruits are in this part of the country. I am currently looking out a window and see that the Mayapples Podophyyllum peltatum are ripening up. They ought to be just about ready at the end of Miskomin Giizoonh. Often called American Mandrake, or Elephant's Ear, the Mayapple is extremely toxic, up until the very moment of ripeness. Then it seems to have the taste of a Golden Delicious apple, but with something else added to the flavour.

Strawberry-blite Chenopodium capitatum are just about perfect this time of year. The "fruit" (actually the flower of the plant) of this member of the Goosefoot family has a flavour to me that stands alone. It somewhat tastes like strawberry, raspberry and mint blended into one, but yet it seems to be so unique that my tastebuds go crazy trying to figure it out. It is by far one of my favourite foods in the woodlands. The rest of the plant makes a good potherb, that I often add to stirfries or stews. Some call it Strawberry Spinach, as the fruit-like flowers resemble Ode'min (strawberry), and the rest of the plant tastes very similar to spinach.

Many members of the Raspberry (Rubus) family are going to be ready during this Moon, this is obviously a logical reason for this time of year to be called Miskomin Giizoonh. Wild Red Raspberry Rubus idaecus, common blackberry Rubus occidentalis and even my personal favourite, the Purple-flowering Raspberry Rubus odoratus will all be ripening at different times. The wild red is already ripe, and this weeked I will be working on a Staghorn sumac Rhus typhina bark basket to collect it and its' respective relatives. The common blackberry will begin to ripen next week, and be ready by the third week. The Purple-flowering is still in bloom, but at the end of the Raspberry Moon will provide the largest of the three fruits.

So does this mean just berries are available? Of course not! There are two more weeks left before the bark of many trees will cling ferociously to the wood once again. So if you want to make baskets, gather soon!

 Sweetflag Acorus calamus will be ready at the end of this moon, and we will talk more about her and her uses in next moon's blogs.

The medicinal plant Jewelweed Impatiens spp. is at its' peak now. Though useful throughout the summer, this is when the most sap can be found in our local plants. This stuff is nicknamed the Aloe of the North, for its' soothing effect on bugbites. I have treated poison ivy with it, though so far science has stated that the Jewelweed plant has no genuine effect.

Salsify Tragopogon sp. is in my opinion best harvested now.

The fruit of the Staghorn sumac (whose bark I will be gathering tomorrow), is just going red now. A sun tea with a very tart, but sweet and citrusy flavour can be made now, though I prefer to wait until the first frost sweetens it up a tad. However it is edible once it turns red. I have heard many outdoors instructors state that the reason Staghorn sumac is called Staghorn, is because that is the title of the fruit. That is incorrect. Look at the branches, and then look at the antlers of a deer. You will notice the branches are very similar looking, and the soft fuzzy hairs of the branches is so similar to when a buck is in velvet. This is the true reason for the name. Gather the leaves now, and you can make a strong dye or mordant for dying fabrics.

This is of course an incomplete list, but then again, I have three more weeks to go! I will include photographs in my next blog post.

Nest blog I will give some recipes for using these foods, but one thing I want to make very clear before we end is this; The Raspberry Moon is a time of great yields of fruit. We would glut ourselves' on the berries and wild plants this time of year, but we would also disperse the seeds, to assist the lifecycle of the plants. Just as importantly, we preserved the majority of the fruits we gathered, through dehydrating (a method I will explain in further detail in the next blog). This may have been a time of plenty, a time to feast. But we remembered the famine of the winter. Around here, February has a special name. It is Bakade Giizis, or The Hunger Moon.

Hope you enjoy my personal experiment. If you feel like joining along, let me know your results, research or anything else in the comments section. Please feel free to subscribe!

Baamaapii,

Caleb Wazhusk

Living the Thirteen Moons; Introduction

Aanii, Boozhoo. Caleb Wazhusk n'diznikauz.

Hello, Greetings. My name is Caleb Muskrat.

I am a Missisauga Anishnaube-nini (Missisauga Ojibway Man) from Hiawatha First Nation. I work as a wilderness skills instructor, as well as an Aboriginal-Archeological Liaison for the Williams Treaty First Nations. I have been accepted at Trent University for the Foundations of Indigenous Learning, and will be pursuing a B.Sc. in Archeology, and if I play my cards right, a Masters in the same subject. I also will be following along with Dan Longboat's programs, which focus on Traditional Indigenous Education and Health, plus Sustainable Agriculture. My passion is for the knowledge of my ancestors, and with that came a big lifestyle change as of New Years of this year.

At the beginning of 2012, I began a diet called the PaleoDiet, which helped me to lose more than forty-five pounds of body fat, and that -plus walking- has gained me twenty-odd pounds of muscle mass. I sleep better now than I ever have, and my joint pain is next to nothing (other than my back, which I am sure will never go away for us humans). However, the PaleoDiet has one problem in my eyes. It is not realistic to my ancestors' way of life, on either continent. You see, the PaleoDiet was made by people who were neither archeologists, nor ethnobotanists (let alone Paleo-Ethnobotanists), The developers of the diet were not mndful to the fact that legumes, grains and members of the nightshade family were consumed all over the world long before the advent of agriculture.

So, with that problem, I decided to take the PaleoDiet, and mix it with more ancient knowledge. As a member of the Anishnaube People, we have what is called the Thirteen Moons Calendar. The story goes that Nanaboozhoo noticed that a turtle had thirteen plates on her shell, and in that moment, decided that there would be thirteen months, or moons. Now, with modern western culture, there are only twelve months. But our calendar goes by moon phases. In each moon phase, the month is measured by twenty-eight days.
There are three hundred and sixty-five days within a year, so does a thirteen month/moon calendar, with twenty-eight days per month really work?


Actually yes. Twenty-eight days goes into three hundred and sixty-five days, Thirteen times.. like this..

365 divided by 28 = 13

Math, it is never wrong.. at least my computer's calculator isn't.

Now, what would the names of these months be? Obviously my people did not name them after Greek deities, or even after their own spiritual beings (Mnidoo or Manitou depending on your dialect). So what would they name their months? Being a people who lived off of the land, and in tune with their environment, the months/moons were titled after what was most available during those seasons, or what was most common in activity or in food. What's that? A calendar based around food? Why yes!

Now, the Anishnaube people have a very broad range, and of course, each area would have different things available in regard to food. And I want to make it clear, not everywhere was each month/moon titled the same. For example; July here in the Rice Lake region is called Miskomin Giizis (or in some dialects, Giizoonh). Miskomin is the name for Raspberry (Misko = Red, min= fruit/berry), and Giizis/Giizoonh refers to Moon. So July is in this region, the Raspberry Moon. However, in Manitoulin Island, July is often called Miinan Giizis/Giizoonh, which is the Blueberry Moon. Why the difference? Because here we have a huge variety of the raspberry family, and throughout this month/moon, they all ripen. Common Raspberry,  Purple-flowering Raspberry, Common blackberry, etc etc. We don't have blueberries here, whereas in Manitoulin Island, they do. Seasonal and regional differences will happen.

So, what exactly is Living by the Thirteen Moons? Well, it is exactly what my Anishnaube ancestors did. Each moon provides different foods, or different important activities. As a person who focuses a great deal of his life on traditional skills, and traditional teachings, it is a no brainer for me to try to emulate this.

I am a firm believer in your genetics having a big say in what you should or should not eat. The Indigenous people of Canada have a rate of diabetes three times higher than the rest of the population of this country. Our heart disease rates are also sky-high. Now compare how we used to eat, to the current diet of many First Nations communities. Health professionals, anthropologists and common sense is all saying this folks, it is not just my opinion.

So what will this blog page be? It will be me, each month (or week) writing about what I am doing to return my body to the traditional diet of my ancestors. No wheat, no dairy, no refined foods. I will also be talking about some traditional skills involved in the thirteen moons, such as; food preserving the old way, and making gathering tools (baskets, digging sticks, etc,) or hunting implements (bow, arrows, fishing spear, etc) for the harvesting of those wild foods.

Hope you enjoy my personal experiment. If you feel like joining along, let me know your results, research or anything else in the comments section.

Baamaapii,

Caleb Wazhusk