When the Frogs are Sleeping

By Miyawata Dion Stout

Miyawata Dion Stout is a 14-year-old Indigenous rights and climate action advocate of Cree lineage. She was invited to be the youth participant in the ‘Power of Story’ sessions and the ‘human book’ delegate at ‘Everybody has the Right,’ both held at the Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, Canada. She is an avid fancy shawl dancer and is currently writing her second novel.  

See Glossary at the end. Words/terms marked with a * appear in the Glossary.

Since the beginning of time itself, my people have flourished in these lands known as Canada, and the United States*. This land is beautiful. It reaches to either end of the ocean, dropping off in steep cliffs, and shallow bays filled with sand and rocks. In the springtime, we hunt geese, and the food brings people together. In the summertime, we pick heart berries, and saskatoons, we come together and feast, dance, and sing. 

Come autumn, the ice begins to freeze, and we can skate.

With the long anticipated arrival of winter, Pipon in Cree*, we tell stories. Stories aren’t told in any other season, only in the winter when the frogs are sleeping, and the birds have migrated. Some say that in the summertime, when animals are awake, they will hear a story that is damaging to them, and become offended. Others say that it will ruin the weather pattern.

But whatever the reason may be, it is impossible to prod a story out of an elder* in June, September, October, July, November, April, August or May.

Stories are gentle, long, and mysterious. They aren’t normally told to entertain, they are a way to vividly describe our ideas about the world, and our core values. The stories of the Cree incorporate all that life incorporates, accepting the good and the beautiful, and the evil and cruel, as part of this world.

This world hasn’t always been kind to the Cree and the hundreds of other tribes who lived alongside us, and still live alongside us today. New people came in search of riches, and brought with them plagues, and disasters to the likes of which we had never seen. Disease brought us to our knees, and in the cases of some, like smallpox, the death toll was suggested to be as high as 95%. Numerous other diseases were brought from across the sea, including bubonic plague, chickenpox, cholera, diphtheria, influenza, malaria, measles, scarlet fever, typhoid, typhus, and pertussis.

Those who didn’t fall victim to disease, starved. It was a terrible time.

Waves of misery washed over our world, taking with it whole families, erasing memories, names, but not the Story. The scattered survivors, scared by smallpox and clutching to hope, they told their words, spoke their tales, it lived.

When people were herded into reserves, and given status cards, the Story still burned within us. The Story survived, because our people survived. Story lived in children, bestowed upon them from the old ones, and when they were put into residential schools*, the Story still remained. 2,800 little children lost their lives in the schools, and never came home. But those who did, brought new stories.

My generation now holds the power, and the fate, of the Story. As we begin to tell our own stories, we write the past, live in the present, and preserve the future. The story is the backbone of tradition, it shows us who we are meant to be, and where we are meant to venture. Storytelling is sacred, it is a fire kept alive through rainstorms, and lightning.

We are recovering what we have lost.

Of course, stories can also be hilarious, and charming. The characters in our tales incorporate the animals, the natural landscapes, and the people. Laughter fills the room, as the storyteller animates the tale with her hands, and the children giggle amongst themselves. 

When you hear the Story, you are humbled. It invites you into a world where monsters roam the earth without cities, and great heroes slay beasts, where incredible beings swim in the water, and legends leap into life. It stirs your very soul.

Elders tell stories of the world before contact, the great prairies, and the millions of people, it is beautiful. You can imagine the bison, as they used to be, roaming in herds that made the earth shake with the weight of a hundred hooves, tilling the soil for when it rained. I live half in the past, half in the present, and that is why Storytelling is essential for the future.

However, I don’t always seek out the past, and the old tales. Stories are being written right now, and someday what I have lived will be history.

Our individual stories are important, they build the history of our people, they teach the children resilience, humor, and courage. 

Our individual stories make up the Story that will forever be sweet words whispered in the winter time, to a new generation, with eager eyes. 

When I am old, and it comes time for me to pass on the power of the Story, I can guarantee you that no amount of prodding will move me to tell my stories until the frogs sleep, and snow settles over the world again, as it has since the beginning.

*GLOSSARY:

lands known as Canada, and the United States: Prior to European contact in the 15th century, many Indigenous people used the name Turtle Island to describe the Earth and these lands.

Cree: Cree is a language, a people and an identity. Nehiyawak is what we call ourselves in our language. It can mean “The People” or “speakers of the Cree language.” The word Cree itself is an English word, a mispronunciation of a Cree word from the James Bay Area, Kiristinon, which was contracted by the French to “Cri,” and later translated into English as “Cree.” We are the most populous Indigenous group in Canada, with the Cree Nation reaching from the plains of Alberta, through the prairie provinces to Quebec, and far into the subarctic regions.

Elder: Elders are extremely important members of the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities. They hold a crucial role in educating and passing teachings on to the younger generations, including traditions, cultures, values, and most importantly, the stories of our people. 

Residential schools: Residential Schools were a network of religious boarding schools funded by the Canadian Government, notorious for child abuse, including sexual, physical, and emotional, starvation, disease, incredible rates of death, destruction of traditional family systems, and a legacy of trauma that has carried through generations and scarred communities. Operating from 1831 to 1996, the primary objective was to remove and isolate Indigenous children from their families, and forcibly assimilate them into the dominant culture. Children as young as four years old were placed into the schools, with an estimated 150,000 Indigenous children taken from their people. Conditions at the schools were incredibly inhumane. There are accounts of maggots in the porridge served in the morning, and homemade electric chairs used to torture the children. The workers at the schools who spoke out about the abuse and neglect were fired. The legacy remains painful to this day.