Whenever I cross the Scarborough Marsh, I hope to see one heron. This morning, I hit the jackpot.
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One of the … displays?… themes? at the Portland (ME) Museum of Art had to do with the art of indigenous peoples (in the case of our location, that would be the various tribes that make up the Wabanaki Nation), including (referencing, or possibly reflecting, the discussion of Fine Art and Everyday Art in the exhibit a couple floors down) canoe making, basket making, song, and storytelling. Representing the latter was a film called “Bay of Herons,” by Jared Lank, a Mik’maq artist and filmmaker.
I didn’t know that there was a film going on behind the curtains in the hall that was dedicated to canoes. I heard some music, and a man’s voice, but I wasn’t paying attention, until I heard, “Glooskap.”
Now, I? am a sucker for Glooskap stories, so I flailed past the curtains, and sat down in the empty space to watch the film. I did not see anywhere near the whole thing. Working back from the bit I did see, the story is about the settlement of White people on a particular piece of land that they proceeded to poison with their ways. In despair, the keepers of this land call upon Glooskap for help. (Glooskap is, um, a folk hero; a man of great medicine, who is credited with having altered the world primeval so that it would support men, and who then taught men how to live in harmony with the world (Glooskap makes a very slight appearance in one of the Carousel books, in a story that Borgan tells Kate, about the making of the Six Worlds.)).
Anyhow, at the point where I joined the circle, Glooskap has come to survey the situation and is disgusted with what his discovers. I don’t know if he remonstrated with the White people and was rejected. I think he would try to show them their error, because Glooskap is a teacher, and, yanno, if I was telling the story, that’s how I’d do it.
Moving on…
Glooskap goes back to the keepers of the land and promises that he will help. He will return, he says, when his teepee is filled with arrowheads.
BEAT
Narrator: He has yet to return.
I note here that Glooskap “gave” Mount Kineo at Moosehead Lake to the Wabanaki as a source for the best arrowheads, so it’s not for lack of material that he hasn’t returned.
Even given that it would take some time to knap a teepee full of arrowheads . . .
. . .I’m worried.