Agulabemu, the Great Bullfrog (Mi'kaq)

TRADITIONAL ETHICS

One of my favorite aspects of indigenous stories is their ability to teach ethics. Indeed, the story-process itself has replaced the need for punishment due to its amazing ability to prevent crime. We learned about this in the beginning of the course when we were learning that the reestablishment of culture for American Indians helped reduce crime and substance abuse. However, it is more than the mere establishment of community; it is also, I believe, the establishment of crime as a possibility. As Devon Pena was expressing in lecture, it is the establishment of the prison that leads to the requirement of prisoners to fill it. I believe that American Indians would agree to this, for there appears to be a belief in what the modern industrial nations refer to as "The Law of Attraction:" that is, like attracts like. I believe that American Indians would agree with the existence of this law due to their practice of gambling, which is highly misunderstood by most westerners. The American Indian gambles for two reasons: First, s/he believes in her/his ability to change the outcome of supposedly "random" events, such as the roll of a die or the side of the peach pits. Thus, winning at gambling portrays the strength of the mind. Second, losing is humbling and informative. These games continue to day and are far from the Western idea of gambling for "the big one."

Anyway, this story is not about the law of attraction or gambling, but I love it for its ability to teach without punishment. Before I delve into it I want to point out that in many place-based cultures, differences in behavior are normal to the extent that the mentally challenged are treated the same as the rest of the tribe. I believe that our focus on differences (in attention span, mental capacity, race, etc) leads to much more crime than anythings else.

At the bottom of this post, I will list the books I refer to in this intro:

One more thing - I can't help but draw connections between Delbert's story and this story of the Great bullfrog. Tell me what you think!

AGULABEMU, THE GREAT BULLFROG

This story begins in a Mi'kmaq village of happy, easy-going people that were entirely dependent on a little brook for all of their water needs, as their was no rain and no other source of water in the land. While the brook was usually plentiful, it began to diminish and eventually ran dry, making the people themselves very dry and concerned. They sent a messenger to find out what was happening to their beloved stream.

Three days of traveling brought the messenger to a dam that had been built upon the little stream, allowing no water to flow downhill to the village. There was a village at the dam and he asked to see the chief to discover why this dam had been built and ask for its removal. The chief, whom he was led to, turned out to be a "whale of a man" in human form, very intense, with great yellow eyes. The messenger gasped

Gehdoo samqwai!
Geespasee!
I am thirsty!
I am dry!

The monster replied:

Do as you choose, do as you choose, do as you choose.
What do I care? What do I care? What do I care?
If you want water, Go somewhere else!

Photo of Mi'kmaq native with canoe "Mi'kmaq Village PEI." Mr. Martin Mitchell. Photo by Crushed Ferret, 2008.

The messenger expressed his suffering and described the suffering and unhappiness of the people in the village. This appeared to please the monster, and he bored a small hole into the dam, allowing a trickle of water to drip out of the reservoir, and forced the messenger to be gone.

Upon returning, the messenger told of the water and in time a tiny stream flowed through the village, but it quickly dried up. The people, who were very honest and kind, did not know what to do. Deciding to send their bravest hunter to demand the dams removal or knock it down, the villagers were left with a difficult and uncomfortable decision. Fortunately, the great Glooskap understood their sorrow and came to their aid, from where no one ever knows, and promised to go as the bravest of the villagers to speak with this monster and, if necessary, break down this dam.

Glooskap was very intimidating, with his face painted the color of blood and a large eagle upon his shoulder. When he walked into the village up stream, all of the villagers feared him greatly, and he sat down by the dried-up creek bed and asked a boy for a drink of water. The boy, fearful of the frightening deity, ran off and returned with a dirty glass of water, not to Glooskap's liking.

Sculpture of the diety Glooskap, Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, photo by Simon P.

Glooskap decided to go and find this chief who had insulted him and denied the villagers water.

"Give me water to drink,and the best, at once, you Thing of Mud!"

The beast told him to get lost, so Glooskap thrust a spear into his belly All of the water that should have been running downstream gushed out of the monsters belly, as he had consumed it all himself. The deflated monster was now tiny, and glooksap caught him and crumpled him in his hand. Ever since, the monster has been the tiny bullfrog with Glooksaps punsihment seen in his wrinkled back.

Downstream, the villagers were gone! They had been at the river dreaming of what they would do with all of the water in the world. When this daydream was granted, they opted to enjoy the water instead of remaining in the village.

The one who wished to live forever in the soft mud and always be wet and cool became the leech.
The one who wished to plunge and dive from rocks, drinking as he dove, became the spotted frog.
Another wished to flow up and down with the tides, living in land but always in water, and so he became the crab.
Lastly, one wished to swim always and forever, and so he became fish.

As it was the hour of granted wishes, these creatures came into being upon their wishes. This is the story of the first sea creatures.

ANALYSIS
I think that this story is great in its interpretation of similarities between animals and humans. While we do this sometimes in the Westernized world, we rarely due this with sea life, which just shows greater than ever the lack of a culture/nature dichotomy among native cultures. This lack of separation is not merely shifted to include those parts of nature that we can associate with as primates or mammals, as westerners often do, but incorporates all nature to prove there really does not exist a barrier between nature and culture.

Pritchard also points out the greatness of this story with the physical punishment of the monster being visible on the bullfrog's back, so that children can go out into nature and see this story for themselves, talk about it, and share enthusiasm with eachother about it. This is one attribute of the importance of story-telling in community development and upbringing. Ethics through stories seems to be effective in these societies.

My favorite part of this story is what I can only describe as the "emotionalization" of nature that the natives use to interpret the various animals. While we use our scientific discourse to interpret the naimal kingdoms based on biology, the Mi'kmaq view these animals as living life through their desires - in this case their desire to be wet, to swim, to dive, to drink.

Most important, this is one more tale of the balance of water and earth that is so essential and so often spoken of in oral traditions. I'm reminded of a story of a South American people, I forget which, who told the westerners that they should not take resources out of the earth as this was the planets blood, and while the westerners laughed, it only became evident later that removing these resources (oil) was indeed killing the planet. This form of ecological knowledge, that is the knowledge of the balance of the earth and the need to avoid overexploitation, is often so simply put that scientific discourse laughs it off. However, we can see in this story that the balance of water and earth has been important to both women/men and biological diversity for millenia.

In addition to this balance is the ethical balance of good and evil. This story is a great emphasis of "what goes around comes around." What's more, the story does not threaten punishment at any given point, it merely flows from what is necessary, and the end result is not death, but reciprocity. The bullfrog loses because that is the balance of nature, not because he deserved it in the interpretation of the people.

This book, Original Wisdom: Stories of an Ancient Way of Knowing, by Robert Wolff is a great book and helped me understand a lot of the concepts that I speak of in these interpretations. I highly recommend it.