The fire burned late into the night.
The flames burned high for hours, fueled not just by the hardwood that was used for ceremonial purposes, but also by the offering of sacred Asemaa (Ah-seh-maw; tobacco) offered by the Great Anishinaabe Ogemaa (Ah-nish-ih-naw-beh Oh-geh-maw; Chief) John Essens (Little Shell).
He was known to be a great orator and his words, deliberate and concise, were carried high into the night sky by the flames and smoke before finally dissipating into the realm of the Creator. There, they would be held for further review.
Ogemaa (Chief) John Essens addressed representatives of the British Crown on that night at Coldwater in 1836. In his speech he declared that he and his people desired to govern themselves as they always had and that they desired to be free of the encroachment and oppression that was threatening to smother and extinguish his people.
He had summoned the Ogemaawag (Oh-geh-maw-wug; Chiefs) of the Tri-Council together on that night and stood tall before the flames of the great fire that the delegation from Upper Canada encircled, and he boldly declared, “We are a Nation!”
Eleven years later, Ogemaa Essens would die tragically in a canoeing accident shortly after he and his people had been displaced to Beausoleil Island from Coldwater.
With his passing, those same delegates that sat at the fire 11 years earlier at Coldwater would begin to dismantle the Nationhood that he sought to protect.
Flash forward to April 2020 and the descendants of those same people who were displaced to Beausoleil Island from Coldwater and who now reside at Christian Island are fending off a new invasion.
COVID-19 is threatening to come onto their territory.
Ogemaa Guy Monague, the elected leader of the Beausoleil First Nation (a moniker which gives a nod to the people’s time at Beausoleil Island), summons the past chiefs of his community to sit as an advisory body to the community in this time of crisis.
He calls upon me, Ogemaa Jeff Monague, and Ogemaa Val Monague, Ogemaa Roland Monague, Ogemaa Rod Monague Jr., and Ogemaa Mary McCue.
The fire that we congregate around today is a virtual fire. We meet through the magic of technology and hold meetings via a platform called Zoom. We meet as equals, tossing aside political views, and focus only on the survival of our people.
The Ogemaawag will provide advice to the current leadership in a display of self-governance that we know has been granted us through our ancestor, Ogemaa Essens.
In 2020, his fire still burns.
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The establishment of an Ogemaawag (Chiefs) committee at Christian Island to act as an advisory body during the pandemic harkens back to Ogemaa (Chief) John Essen's struggles in the 1830s. It is based on oral history of an actual event. This oral history has been validated through the research and writing of Smith, Heather N. (2018) - We Are One Nation, The Legacy of the Coldwater Narrows Reserve, 1830-1836.
